One of my absolute favorite things to do on a personal basis is to stand in the shower and lather myself up. I like to get soaked. Then I get a towel and bring out some soap or some body wash, rub the towel together briskly until it foams up, and use that foam to cover my body from the back of my ears, to around my throat, to my arms, to my belly, to my private bits and pieces, then to my legs. Then I flip the towel over to the side that I didn’t use. Clean my feet. By this point, I’m standing basically covered in foam with the water completely shut off.
At that point, I switch the water back on, and I let all the soap rinse off my body onto the floor of the shower, and I watch it, because sometimes it forms a funny pattern, almost like the lines and the strata that you see inside of a shell (like an abalone shell). It’s not any particular shape other than vaguely the roundness of my belly and my body, and the soap takes out that pattern as it radiates outward onto the floor before it starts to slowly lean back towards the drain. Then I cup my right arm to my belly, hand up, so the water collects in the crook of my arm, and I flick it down on the floor to watch those lines of soap disperse. I’ve noticed that they form patterns, almost like fractals, but sometimes you can see the outlines of letters.
This morning when I did that, I saw the outline of what appeared to be a question mark.
This is a really weird thing to think at a time like this, because I haven’t really got the time. But this is my sort of diary entry, so I can say whatever the hell I damn well want.
The crux of the problem that I’m facing right now is that I am an obvious target in a society of people who are pledged to be kind, peaceful, and safe. When people pledge things like that, it’s kind of how you know that the world and all the people in it function as obverses to the things that they say. It’s like when something really great or momentous happens to you — winning an award (not that I’ve ever won any awards), getting picked in a raffle. After that initial wave of good cheer and the energy clears out, what you discover is you’re sitting there with your real emotions — the emotions that are left when they hit the floor and start sliding back down towards the drain. And sometimes, even though something good has happened, you don’t feel good. You don’t feel happy.
(By way of a parenthetical reference, I should note that I have been involved in a number of traffic accidents, and the overwhelming number of times when people hit my car, my first reaction isn’t to scream and rage. It’s to laugh.)
So when I tell you that things work in opposite or obverse ways, I’m not joking. It’s my experience that once the first wave clears, what’s left over, what backwashes in, is how you really feel. And at this moment, surrounded by people that I’m supposed to feel safe with, I feel anything but safe.
What I need is protection. And interestingly enough, the only person that I think can provide me protection in a setting like this is a person who, for the sake of discretion, I will call Warner (like Werner Herzog, the director, but with an A). This person isn’t a director. Well, maybe he is a director — a director of something other than films.
Warner is the part-time bartender at a small ground floor installation in a hotel somewhere in the West End of London that I’m also not going to disclose. And Warner, apart from making a coffee that’s terrible, and a tea that’s okay, and a martini that I’ve never tried but have been told is absolutely rancid, can organize things. He can get people on set. One of his roles in the hotel was to organize, shall we say, professional entertainment for some of the guests in the hotel. Warner is Filipino (and by the way, in case you didn’t know this, Filipinos make the absolute best macks and pimps in the world, bar none). But apart from running straight girls for the clientele of the hotel, Warner can get anything, and I do mean anything. He can get transvestite prostitutes. He can get transgender prostitutes. He can get fat fetish prostitutes. Every color under the rainbow he can get.
So from 5,500 miles away, my hope is that Warner can get ahold of a couple of his countrymen to find me where I am now, surrounded by the people who are out to get me, and hopefully they’ll bring backup.
Unfortunately, where we are, guns are prohibited. Any place guns are prohibited you know is going to be a sh*t show, because in any place where they ban the use of guns in the civilian population, that means the only people who are going to have guns are the sh*t bags. The police have guns (and that’s not to say necessarily that they’re sh*t bags, but they definitely overstay their welcome in certain situations). I speak from experience, having had to pay for new sets of tires for certain prefecture police officers’ luxury cars, and Rolex watches for the mistresses of certain other prefecture police officers. Police use the fact that they have access to guns to intimidate people who don’t have guns. Oh, and the other group of people in a setting where no guns are allowed to have guns are villains. I’m not a villain. I’m just a guy who runs off at the mouth sometimes and gets into a bit of trouble.
I phone Warner up, and he’s very excited to see my number flash up, because he answers the phone, “Hey, boss. Are you coming to London soon? Maybe I’ll see you soon.”
“No, Warner, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m going to be making it to London anytime soon. In fact, I don’t think I’m going to make it to London anytime at all if you can’t give me a hand here.”
“Sure, boss. What do you need?”
“Warner, I’m in the lobby of a hotel. About five paces from me at all four cardinal points of the compass are guys similarly dressed who are obviously here to take something from me, something that I’d prefer not to give them.”
“Okay, boss. What do you need?”
“Well, Warner, what I need is, I need for you to send two or three or four or five Filipino guys that are armed to come and capture me and take me out of this hotel by force to wave off these other four gentlemen.”
“Ha, okay, boss. Let me thinks about it.” After a pause, he says, “Okay. Text me your directions to where you are, and wait for me to text you back.”
I do that. I send him my location by dropping a ‘pin’. About five minutes later, after ordering another cappuccino, I get a message back from Warner saying, “Stay put. I have friends coming.”
Sure enough, 15 minutes after that, four men dressed not exactly shabbily, but not exactly the kind of outfits that you’re going to find on the cover of GQ magazine, storm their way into the lobby of the hotel. I put both my hands up as if to say, “No, please leave me alone.” These men grab me and pull me away. As they do that, the other four armed men in the room move in. One of the Filipino men turns around, pulls a stiletto out, opens it up, waves it at the man, and tells him to f*ck off.
In a weird sort of way, my plan is working.
One of the Filipino men asks for the keys to my car. I hand them to him. That man runs off, never to be seen again. The other three men push me outside into a waiting van, where there is a fifth man driving. I’m forced into the back of the van. They push me down to the ground.
Now, the four men in the van take turns verbally accosting me very loudly. My first impression is this must surely be part of the act. And again, I think it’s working perfectly, because now I’m no longer worried about the four men from the lobby. I’m worried about the four men in this van (and frankly, the one guy who I think I just gave my car to).
The van drives off. The intensity of the verbal assault increases, but I have to admit, I don’t fully understand what’s being said, because these men don’t really speak perfect English. One of them takes out a blackjack and starts hitting me in the neck, shoulders, and arms, shouting something at me. I can’t really get my head around it, because I just realized that apart from having tried to escape one set of attackers, I just willingly went off with another set of attackers.
The driver pulls out his telephone, presses a few buttons, and all of a sudden, I’m on a FaceTime call with Warner. I sigh in relief.
“Warner, thank God it’s you. Can you tell your friends that we’re safe now, that we can stop?”
Warner says, “Well, no, sir, because now you have to pay.”
And I say, “Okay, Warner. Well, you know I’m good for the money. How much do you want? 1,000? 2,000?”
“Oh, no, boss. It’s more than that now.”
“Warner, come on, man. We’ve known each other for a long time, for, like, 20, 25 years. Why are you doing this?”
Warner says, “I’m doing this because this is what I do. This is why I am so good at it, and this is why you called me. Now, what I want, I want you to take this message that I’m about to send you.” It’s a Bitcoin address. He says, “I want you to move two bitcoins into my wallet within the next hour.”
“Warner, come on, man. That’s $160,000, like $170,000. What the hell?”
Warner says, “Okay, man. Those guys in the van, they can drive all night if you want.”
“Warner, it’s going to take me a long time to pull money like that together.”
“Come on, man. You don’t have two bitcoin that you can send me right now?”
“Well, no, not really, Warner. And frankly, the four guys that were in the hotel, they were only asking for $25,000 in cash.”
Warner’s tone of voice changes. “Do you have $25,000 in cash on you?”
“Well, yeah, I do.”
“Give it to them.”
So I dig into my pocket, and I pull out one wad of $10,000. In my other pocket, there’s another wad of $10,000, and from my back pocket, I pull out a rolled-up wad of $5,000. I’m like, “Here, look, it’s 25,000. Okay, are we done?”
Warner laughs and says, “No. Now you have to come up with one bitcoin.”
“Warner, I really object to this,” I say. “I don’t think that this is a fair way to treat a man who came to you looking for help. You’re not really helping right now.”
He shouts something in Tagalog, or Pinoy, or whatever it is Filipinos speak.
“Warner, what did you just say? Why is the driver stopping the van?”
Warner says, “No, he’s not stopping the van. He’s turning around. They’re going back to the hotel to give you to the Russians.”
“Oh, come on, man. You can’t do this to me now.”
He goes, “Oh, no, I can, but don’t worry, the Russians aren’t going to f*ck with you anymore.”
“How do you know that?”
He says, “Don’t worry, I’m going to prove to you that the Russians are not going to f*ck with you anymore, and we’re going to be good at $25,000.”
“Okay, Warner. I guess I have to trust you, although I have to be honest, I don’t really feel in a trusting moment right now. What the hell is going to happen?”
Warner says, “Don’t worry, boss. You’re going to see.”
They pull up to the hotel. One of the other Filipino men gets out of the van, goes into the lobby, sees the four Russian men, calls their attention. The four Russian men come out to the forecourt of the hotel. They open the side door on the van. The driver rolls down the window and says, “Hey, is this the guy you want?”
The Russians say something grumbly and move towards the van. The driver pulls out a stiletto, springs the blade, and says, “Hey, watch this.”
The two men in the back push me out of the van. One of them takes out another stiletto (what the hell is it with these guys and f*cking stilettos?) and proceeds to stab me in between the ribs.
Jesus Christ, this really f*cking hurts. Christ, I’m bleeding. I think they just caught my lung.
They push me down to the ground outside in the forecourt of the hotel and drive off. The Russians, seeing this fracas as nothing of their making, run away, and now I’m $25,000 lighter. I have a punctured lung. I’m bleeding all over the forecourt of this sh*tty hotel somewhere in the Middle East.
And in a strange way, in that moment, I felt relieved.