"Got an offer, and had to run. Catch up with you later. Kitty."
"Hi, Leo," Ghishu greets his friend. "How did the interview go? Did you findanything? I got an offer for a position at some security company called 'TheDog Faces' which is supposed to be somewhere in Four Points."
Leo's face changes from a deep frown upon exiting the interview room, to a wide smile as he meets back with Ghishu. "Hello!" he waves a spindly arm.
"I'm glad to hear things went well for you," he continues in a low voice as the door closes behind him. "I have a name and an address for a three-month gig, but the interview was rather creepy and depressing. I'll tell you about it when we're out of here."
Looking around for Kitty, Ghishu spots the note on the wall. "I wonder where she went. Al Amarja is not a place that I would travel alone - at least not 'til I graduate from this 'burgerhood' thing that seems to stick to us newcomers everywhere we go. I hope she's OK."
Leo nods in agreement. "But if anyone can handle it, it's Kitty I guess..." he says, a note of worry in his voice. He picks up the note, examines it close ly, and finding nothing amiss, folds it carefully and pockets it.
As they head out of the slick building into the sunny streets of Golden Barrio, Leo describes his interview to Ghishu. "The lady who interviewed me was very uptight and rather creepy, although I felt a bit sorry for her. What seemed strange at first is that she didn't seem very interested in job placement; she barely described any of the jobs. Now I may not be her ideal candidate, but I figure she must make her money from placing people, so she might as well try to convince me, right?"
He gives the patented Leo shrug. "But that was pretty much eclipsed when I heard her say -" he lowers his voice to a whisper - "'Come to the house, we need you'!" He gives Ghishu a significant glance. "My first impulse was to run out of there, but I decided it wouldn't look good. And I'm beginning to realise just how weird this whole island is! So I staid and asked what she meant, but she denied having said it. Then I asked about the jobs, and it was all I could do to get basic details. I settled for a three-month contract for nightly entertainment at a place called Home Brew, although you can guess I'm a bit wary..."
He pulls out the map he tore out of the hotel phone book, smoothes the creases and contemplates geographical questions. "Let's see, you need to go to Four Points... That would be here..." he points. "And Home Brew is on the Ramble between Flowers and the Brink - here. Almost back where we came from! Well, Four Points doesn't seem to be a big detour between here and Flowers, so maybe we should head there. We could also stop by Gun Metal, like you suggested earlier. I could use some new throwing knives since C&I confiscated mine. Show knives," he adds.
Ghishu listens to Leo's account closely and comments: "This place does seem weird, but don't let it get to you. We'll eventually find out what 'Come to the house, we need you' means. You see, the way I see it is that when we decided to ignore it and go on with our lives, it came after us. When whatever it is will be willing to show itself to us, it will. Don't worry about it - it will all sort into place eventually."
As Leo pulls out the city map, Ghishu studies it with him. "You're right. Four Points does seem to be on the way to The Ramble, so we can stop there on the way. We'll go to Gun Metal and maybe they can give us a clue as to where I can find the Dog Faces. If not we can stop at this place called 'Metalworks' and ask there - a tip I got from the lady who interviewed me. How do you want to go there - walk or take a cab?"
Ghishu then looks around as if trying to find something. "Do you remember if we passed by a pay phone on the way here? I think I'll give Li a call. She might be able to help me with the location of the Dog Faces' headquarters."
Leo cocks his head. "Li is probably still on the job, I doubt you'll reach her. I was going to suggest we catch a jitney outside the gate to Golden, and head for Four Points, since it's cheaper. Walking might take a bit too long. And on a jitney we might be able to poll the driver and the other passengers about the Dog Faces. What do you think?"
"Sure, Leo", Ghishu agrees, "A jitney sounds like a good idea." He looks at a clock: it's about four o'clock in the afternoon.
Once past the checkpoint between Golden and the rest of the world, Leo feels as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders.
"You know," he tells Ghishu, "I really don't think I fit too well over there..." He gestures toward the Barrio of Gold. "With the suits, it's like any other business district in the world: dry, cold, boring, uptight. This side..." He turns back to the crowded Mediterranean street, "It's alive! Look at those colours, smells the cooking!" He grins.
"Well, let's see if we can find a jitney. I'll bet they're easy to find, since they must drop off and pick up people at the checkpoint all the time." He cranes his neck above the human sea and checks their surroundings.
As if on cue ('mazing, ain't it) an older model (80's) white Ford delivery van pulls up on the street just beyond the checkpoint. The side door slides open and a couple of individuals dressed in business wear step out. Painted on the driver and passenger side doors are the words "ALAI'S JITNEY SERVICE" in blue letters. Through the windshield Leo and Ghishu can see the driver removing the sign that says "GOLDEN BARRIO" from the top of the windshield, and replacing it with another sign that says "FOUR POINTS".
After checking whether any passengers are trying to get off the jitney here, and waiting for them to disembark, Leo hops into the jitney with a bouncy step -- and smashes the top of his head on the top of the door frame. "Nom de... Zut!"1 he groans. He rubs his bruised skull vigorously, grimacing. Slouching to avoid a repeat performance, he check that Ghishu is still with him, then turns to the driver.
"How much is the ride?" he asks.
From the driver's seat, an Al Amarjan man in his late thirties with olive skin, black hair and a physique that could best be described as 'pear shaped' cranes his neck back to offer a look of undisguised irritation. "Mind your head," he chides, not for Leo's sake but rather for the door frame itself, which has just suffered a tiny dent from the impact. Ghishu and Leo immediately notice that the jitney's interior has collected a number of small dents and dings over the years. While the exterior looks almost brand new, between the structural damage, the mismatching seats and the stained upholstery, it's fair to say the interior has seen better days.
"Five dollars," the driver then announces, thrusting out his hand in the universal gesture for 'pay me.'
Leo makes a face. He starts digging into his pockets, revealing more pocket lint (and more pockets) than seems possible; it appears he must have held a job as lint trap on a dryer in the recent past. He also pulls out a couple of wadded dollar bills that also seem to have been through the dryer, and a handful of coins of tiny denominations. He flattens the wrinkled bills as best he can, and examines the small change.
"Uh... How about $3.17?" he counter-offers after a quick addition.
The driver arches an eyebrow at Leo's attempt at haggling. Then a sparkling gold front tooth comes to light as he breaks into a friendly smile. "Maalesh, maalesh, $3.17 is more than enough!" he reassures. "In fact, put your money away! I'm not running a business or anything. I'm the one and only fairy godfather of deadbeat burgers and zeroes! Yes, it's my civic duty to go from barrio to barrio carting your useless freeloading carcasses around!"
Wait, maybe it's not a friendly smile. Maybe it's a sarcastic sneer.
"You're telling me that between the two of you, I can't get five lousy dollars to buy some gasoline?" he complains.
Ghishu's voice can be heard from behind Leo. "It's OK Leo", he says, "this one's on me."
Holding a roll of bills in his hand he tries to push himself past Leo in order to reach the driver, only to find himself stuck between Leo and the door frame. A couple of shoves and a groan later he manages to put himself in front of Leo, but with the momentum of the move he crashes into Alai, who responds by grunting inelegantly and giving Ghishu a pained "why me?" look.
Getting back on his feet, he casually straitens his clothes and hands Alai the bills, now wrinkled from the ordeal (he was using his hand to block his fall on the driver). As Alai reaches for the bills, he pulls his hand back just a little and says "Where exactly do you stop in Four Points?"
This brings a look of exasperation worthy of John Cleese's best work in "Fawlty Towers." Alai takes a deep, cleansing breath and visualizes his special happy place before answering: "Exactly? You realize this a jitney, don't you? I'll be decelerating to a full stop exactly wherever you damn well please. The Plaza, the Barrio, you name it. As long as it's in Four Points. Providing you pay the fare. Now do you want the ride or not?"
"We're going to Pogrom Lane," says Leo. "And Ghishu just gave you two more bucks, so we're covered. Come on, Ghishu!"
Alai grunts his acknowledgement. He pockets the money and settles back into the driver's seat.
Leo drags his friend toward the back of the jitney and away from the driver's earshot. "Sorry, Ghishu," he whispers, "I'm not quite as broke as that but I was trying to get him to lower his price. It seemed like this would be the kind of transportation you haggle over price for. Also, I thought it was $5 each. I still have some money, although not a lot."
From the inside, it is obvious that this vehicle was not originally intended to carry passengers. There are no windows on the sides of the van, save for up front near the driver, and a rear window. This was likely once a delivery van that has had seats bolted to the floor.
The interior looks about how you would expect - kinda dingy and grimy.
The upholstery of the seats is stained and worn, and the seats look as
though they have seen their share of nicks and dents over the years.
"Competition must be fierce!" yells Leo, miming what appears to be a cross between the Frankenstein monster and a tiger for emphasis.
"Better believe it," Alai yells back over the sound of the noisy engine. "Always someone looking to take advantage." (Apparently, he thought Leo's comment was meant for him.) The jitney lurches as he suddenly steps on the gas, pulling out into traffic and narrowly cutting off a mid-sized sedan. Horns blare. He offers the sedan driver a colorful hand gesture, then accelerates to beat the light by a fraction of a second.
Leo and Ghishu feel their hearts pounding. The ride is fast and furious, one of those 'hang on for dear life' situations. It's fair to say Alai doesn't mind risking his passengers' lives -- but every risk he takes seems to be working out. So far. Perhaps not surprisingly, he isn't paying strict attention to the road, instead working on straightening his Al Amarjan necktie and brushing a stray piece of lint off the "Safe 'n Sound" pin on his suit.
"It'll be four or five minutes, depending on traffic," he comments, now shifting gears with astoundingly effective precision. "Where on Pogrom can I let you out?"
"Well, would you happed to know where to find the Dog Faces?" asks Leo loud enough to be heard over the noise. He's managed to use his talents as a contortionist to wedge himself in an apparently impossible position, bracing against the side and the seat ahead of him.
Ghishu, who was getting into a quasi meditative state in order to try and survive the drive, snaps out of it when he hears Leo's question. He turns to Alai with an anticipating looks.
"Sure would," answers Alai, somehow managing to turn left from the far right hand lane in a busy intersection without getting into an accident. "I can take you to the Jungle no problem. It'll be about a left rear tire pressure 53 lbs/in ride."
Ghishu's face begin to lighten as he hears Alai's answer, only to make him lose his concentration on his bracing and bang his head on the right window in response to the sudden driving maneuver that Alai pulled. Rubbing his head with his right arm, he makes sure he is holding something firm with the other. Listening to Alai finishing his reply, his face reassume the solemn expression he had before. He looks at Leo with a questioning stare mouthing the word 'jungle?'
Leo winces in sympathetic pain as his friend's head impacts the window.
Then
the driver's reply brings a confused look on his face. He shrugs
at Ghishu,
mouthing 'who knows?' in answer.
"Uh... What's a 'left rear tire pressure 53 lbs/in ride'?" he asks Alai.
As he speaks, he spares a concerned look for a flock of pedestrians scattering before the bus's onslaught like so many quails before the hunt. "I think he missed one..." he mutters half-facetiously to Ghishu, pointing to the gesticulating people who have taken refuge behind street lamps and benches, and are now waving at Alai's jitney with one finger.
"What's a left rear tire pressure 53 lbs/in ride?" Alai echoes, his inflection suggesting that the answer is perfectly obvious and Leo must be really dim to ask such a stupid question. "You've got to be kidding me, burger. Everyone knows it's..." he begins, then abruptly trails off in mid-sentence, looking confused and more than a little embarrassed.
"What did you say again? Fifty-three what? I think I must have misheard you. Anyway, my tires are fine. Pressure's fine. Everything's fine," he explains, shifting gears again with eerie precision. It may be a wild, bumpy, frightening ride, but this jitney driver has quite a feel for the road. Ghishu and Leo have to admit they're not just making good time, they're making *excellent* time.
"Dog Faces," Alai then says, changing subjects without benefit of a segue. And he chuckles to himself, flashing that sparkling gold tooth again. "Well, it takes all kinds."
Leo hangs on to the back of the seat ahead of him as they take a tight curve at the absolute minimum physically possible speed. He gives a low whistle of admiration. He considers whether to pursue the Mysterious Matter of the 53 pounds per inch ride. He is fleetingly reminded of other non sequiturs which have graced his first day on The Edge ("Come to the House!"), and once again decides to observe a bit before he pushes the issue.
"What about the Dog Faces?" he asks instead in a conversational holler. "That's kind of an interesting name. Are they really ugly? Or is it just one of those names to attract attention, like the Sex Pistols?"
"Can I assume no one ever taught you the difference between a jitney and an information booth?" Alai hollers back. "I don't know why they're called Dog Faces -- maybe 'cause calling them 'Baboon Asses' would be a touch insulting."
Idly rubbing his stomach in a back and forth motion, Alai throws a quick
glance at the jitney's various gauges and grumbles something under his
breath that neither Leo nor Ghishu can make out.
As the door of the jitney pops open, Leo and Ghishu see that they have stopped in a neighborhood that can, politely, be called "an urban wasteland". The place looks like a set from "Escape from New York" or "Robocop" - rusted out hulks of cars, trash everywhere, buildings badly in need of repair with broken windows, peeling paint, and damaged brickwork and masonry. The people, those who can be seen, are poor. Damned poor. The best of them are dressed in tired, worn out, second hand clothing. Many are dressed in rags, and seem to be spending their time rooting through the piles of garbage. There is an air of tension in their stances, like a herd of gazelle watching for predators. Those who show any interest in the jitney at all show a mixture of fear and predatory avarice - this seems like an area where someone could get killed for the price a good pair or athletic shoes - a vehicle would bring a price beyond the imagining of most of them.
The air that blows into the jitney seems both somehow stale and cold, though the day is warm.
Leo takes a dubious look outside, then glances back at Ghishu. "Uh... We really want to do this, right?" Leo remembers being in this kind of place before, but he's also worked a lot not to have to be there anymore. He's seen Ghishu's moves earlier at Kuan Tun's, but there's only two of them. "Oh well," he continues, "I'm not wearing or carrying anything of value, and you're no better. Aspiring muggers will be pretty disappointed."
He turns to Alai. "Sir, how far to Metalworks and Gun Metal from here? And where do we find the, um, Dog Faces?"
"Let me get this straight," complains Alai. "When I was just driving you around, you didn't call me anything. But now that you're in a bad neighborhood, suddenly I'm 'Sir'? Do you burgers have any idea how 32/36 DGEV electric choke carburetors lame that is?"
Ghishu also looks outside with a troubled expression. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and then, like some sort of internal switch was turned on, he completely relaxes. When he opens his eyes again, his face wear a calm expression and it looks like he's entered some sort of mental state in which nothing can affect him. "I guess we should have been expecting something like this from a place called 'the jungle'".
As Leo talks to the driver, Ghishu cautiously steps out of the door and inspect their surroundings while standing close to the vehicle waiting for Leo to follow.
Alai grunts and gives Leo a rather fishy-eyed stare. Something in it brings the term "white line fever" [or the belgian equivalent] to Leo's head, unbidden.
"The Dog Faces," he says, drawing the words out, "are in the Jun-gle. The Jun-gle is the building that we are parked in front of. We are parked in front of the Jun-gle because that is where you asked me to take you. That is how a jitney service works."
He leans forward to scratch at a speck on the inside of the windshield. "As for Metalworks and Gun Metal, they are nine and one half blocks from here. Take Western Road - the street which we happen to be parked on at the moment - down four blocks to the intersection of Western and Business. Turn left. Travel two and one-half blocks and you will see an alleyway - unnamed - to your right between a small grocery store and some cheap apartments. Turn right and proceed down the alleyway, taking all due care to avoid the dumpsters and other impediments to traffic. Travel for one block along the alleyway and turn right at the mouth of the alley onto Shrimp Street, which is one way. Follow Shrimp Street for one block - exactly one block you understand - and you will see an alley on your left. Take that alley. Halfway down the alley you will see two large metal doors, one on the left and one on the right. These doors are monitored by security cameras. The one on the left is the loading door for Gun Metal. The one on the right is the loading door for Metalworks. Neither is marked as such. If you continue down the alley for an additional half block you will come to the intersection of the alley and Pogrom Lane. You will perceive, from my previous directions, that the main entrance to Gun Metal will lie on your left, and the main entrance to Metalworks will lie on your right."
He straightens and wiggles around in his seat a bit, settling in. "Having now received considerably more than one normally gets for a five-dollar jitney ride, I hope that you will understand if I instruct you to either a) state a new destination and deposit five additional dollars of b) disembark from the vehicle so that you may get yourselves killed without damaging my upholstery further."
Leo fishes a couple of dollars from a pocket (a different one this time) and offers it to Alai. "Thank you very much, sir," he says politely.
With this, he follows Ghishu. As the jitney pulls off, leaving the two Burger abandoned like innocent newborn babes on a church doorstep, Leo comments drily to his friend: "Well, that was certainly a 240 volt triphased inverted rotor kind of a ride..." He shrugs. "Shall we ambulate to the Jun-gle to meet your prospective employers?"
With a skeptical expression, he surveys the surroundings. He cranes his neck to look up the five stories of empty windows facing him, then slowly reads the graffiti ornamenting the facade. As his gaze comes to rest on the front door of this inviting building, his stomach rumbles loudly. He blushes a bit and glances at Ghishu. "Cyprus dinner coming back to haunt me," he says with a tinge of embarrassment.
The air carries a faint, yet familiar scent to Leo's nostrils - something vaguely familiar from the circus. What could it be? Yes. That's it.
It's animal shit.
From within the building comes a muted, animal scream of rage.
"That reminds me of the days at Barnum & Bailey," grumbles Leo with a deepening frown. "And others..."
He doesn't seem to be filled with nostalgic longing. "You know one of the best parts about working for le Cirque du Soleil, or, for that matter, the Great Circus of China - if I qualified?" he asks conversationally, but rhethorically. "No animals are harmed in the making of this circus."
Distractedly, he glances around.
Ghishu smiles a sympathetic smile at Leo, and says, "This island can make you take a different look at your life. It's always a matter of perspective - things here look bad enough for you to reevaluate your past, don't they?" Saying that, his face acquires a sad expression.
"But enough with that", he proclaims after a few moments, "We came here for a reason. The Dog Faces are probably in that building because the job description said that they prefer someone who can handle himself with animals - and according to the smell, there are animals in there."
Ghishu starts heading towards the main entrance, not letting his guard down just in case one of the locals decide they want to get to know them better.
As Ghishu and Leo near the building the front door (a heavy iron contraption that looks like it was added after the building burned) swings open, and the pair is suddenly confronted by the sight of a good half dozen baboons which come romping, charging, and snarling out the door, screeching and screaming loudly.
Seeing the horde of baboons, Ghishu quickly moves himself to stand in
front of Leo. As he does that he looks on the ground near him, looking
for something to serve as an improvised weapon. Picking up a broken
chair leg, he holds it between himself and their assailants, making thrusts
and swings in hope that it would serve as some sort of deterrent.
To Be Continued...