Invite From Lee

A call from Lee, beers, how about tonight? E@L agreed without any qualms because he is used ot other people driving his social life. in fact, being such a fatalist (read fucking lazy), he encourages people to run his nights and weekends, for the anxiety makes his heart tighten at the prospect of organizing something, not a war, but drinks, a party, and nobody came - he would be flushed with shame (made manifest in a further retreat into himself, conversing with his pessimistic internal narrator, his self-awareness, solipsism ) so he avoids making decisions and waits for offers to flow in from people who seem to enjoy his company, although he doesn't understand why. Because he is fat, because he is bald, because he pops out ridiculous, what, bon-mots? of sarcasm at crucial times in conversation, some of which make drunk people laugh? Ah that's it, because he is a clown, as he was told back when he was a student radiographer. He doesn't feel particularly clownish most of the time. Make 'em laugh when I am with people. Make me cry when I'm alone.

He meets Lee in Devil's, a bar that is open to Lochard Rd in front, convenient plan - more and more bars like this, primarlily for expats of course, are opening, so that drinkers can stand on the footpath, even spill onto the street if Wanchai is busy, say when the 7s is on, or a yank boat in town, even merely a crucial football game broadcast on TV, and they have to push through the bottleneck of a doorway. They must it want o become more like an Kwai Fong, to attract the suits and banker-wankers. Plus ambience, fresh air in which to smoke, traffic to harass, hookers at the BMDs across the street to wave at. But it's not busy tonight, it's flat, you can tell as the hookers have given up, accepting that fact that whoever is sitting at Devils is there to consume beer, not spend money on an assisted ejaculation, at least not yet.. Maybe later though.

Lee has one of those A4 envelopes that have the string to tie the flap closed with; uh-oh.

They can sit where they want or even at the bar. There is none of that stepping across to the bar, a step back towards a table [an upended wine barrel], half a step back to the bar awkward waltz that I sometimes get into when I am not certain who has the honour of choosing seats. Lee just grabs a chair at the front-most table, at the edge of the footpath. A smiling waitress follows us to the table, Lee smiling too, she hovers almost embarrassed [has Lee fucked her?], Lee asks how things are going, of course he knows her name - Maria - he asks about George, the manager, is he here? Maria nods.

"Yes, Mr Lee, he's in the back."

Lee is still smiling, "Give us two pints now Maria - Kilkenny OK, E@L? - and a kiss later, promise?"

She giggles and swings around head back as if she was in charge and says, "If you are good poy, Mr Lee," she purrs in her strong accent (Cebu? Angeles? Who the fuck cares?)

"Good? Is that all? You know I'm great - give us that kiss now!" But Maria has skipped back into the bar and dropped back into her waitress, non-coquette, role.

"Great arse. I'm going to set-up that bar I told you about," he said. He was confident as usual, his ginger hair combed back, his jaw - I hate to describe it as square, but it was rock-solid square, centre-dimpled - clean with a only a hint of the days growth (ginger also, easy to get away with) his eyes, hooded and steady, but his smile pulled down to an I'm-fucking-serious-about-this-jack expression.

Marie brought the beers. Lee pinched her on that great arse and we clinked glasses and I took a long swallow while he just wet his lips.

Lee could to talk to almost anyone about sport. He knew more of the details of the Sha-Tin and Happy Valley horse-racing than a strapper would, and he'd have more inside knowledge as well, not to mention what was happening in the Grand National or the Melbourne Cup that year. He had an encyclopedia of English and European football (as he called soccer) chipped into his head. You name it; international rugby, Australian Rugby Union and Rugby League, every international cricket team and its in-form batters and bowlers, American basketball, football and baseball. In short he was astounding. He could chat with anyone about their favorite and challenge the knowledge of the biggest, smuggest, die-hardest fan. He could quickly turn their enthusiasm into a over-whelming sense of friendship, using conversations that targeted their strong points without diminishing his own strength. In a few minutes they would be on his side, in another few, the most surly thug was an eternal friend who would lop off one of their limbs at his bidding.

He also knew music. Mostly seventies junk, but a good smattering of the new romantics and other new wave sub-genres of the eighties that didn't make it to the nineties or the noughties, and with this he could entertain older women, the zombie divorcees, in situations were he was playing wingman. But he also said things like, "Local girls like Canto-pop, I like Canto-pop", or "Girls like Kylie Minogue, I like Kylie Minogue" His awareness of these styles put his targets at ease, and again, they quickly relinquished resistance. How he kept this cornucopia of trivia organized in his mind was unknowable to other mere humans.

But he knew almost nothing about Australian Rules football, the only public sport I knew anything about, not that that was much. Lee's charms therefore were useless against me. My fair-weather support for the Cats, and not the enormous gaps in any obsessive grasp of their statistical history that Lee could not test, were like a shield of steel! [Batfink.]

However I still liked him. All the time he was my flatmate, he had been charming, friendly and fucking useful. He could fix a wayward TV, video or CD player, sort out a computer pilot error issue, tame internet router recalcitrance. His Tagalog comments always amused The Mouse and often sent her to her cupboard giggling and embarrassed. I had no idea what he had said. Whatever it was, she tolerated the succession of girls he brought to his room, and if there was a pair of high-heels (or two, on one infamous night, three) by the door, would demurely step away from his room at the time she had designated for tidying up. We never once had a fight, hardly even a disagreement. He made it seem that we were cut from the same stuff.

Lee was serious.

"Good for you," I said.

"We're looking for investors for this. [He and five other banker friends whom I know on a nodding, 'let's get blowjobs at the Dragon-Club' basis] We've got most of the money, but you're a buddy, I want you in on it."

"For a bar in Wanchai?"

He looked at me steadily with a neutral expression that slowly eased into a small grin.

"Yep," he said.

"Triads?"

"Sorted. Two of the boys have connections... [Lawyers, drug-runners, coppers, Chinese businessmen, who knew?] We can get away with this with a minimum. I won't be like here." He leant forward. "George is barely breaking even with the cash he has to fork out, even though it's not a hooker bar. We've spoken to George, to 'Bulldog' [Brian] at Barking Dog, all the guys. Discretely of course. It's a done deal."

"When is this happening?"

"We've already put an offer in for the place on the corner." He nodded at a dismal place diagonally across the intersection. It was an gray stone building, the doors and window frames painted a dark uncertain colour, with windows opaque and interior lights dim. It was meant to be an Olde English Pubbe, but no old Englishmen went there, only a smattering of young Chinese, likely lookouts for the Triad overlords of Hong Kong. Or just young Chinese. It needed something to improve its money making potential, that was plain.

"What do you think of a coyote bar?"

Coyote. Bar. These words together created a phrase that was new to me. What the fuck is a coyote bar, I thought at first. Wild dogs? Westerns and cowboys? The movie Coyote Ugly of a year or two before had slipped through my must-see fingers.

"Girls dancing on the bars, giving lay-backs, all that shit." Lee said. "It's going to be ab-so-lutely fantastic. Give this part of town a lift into legitimacy."

I nodded, twisted a lip at the side. I knew what girls were, I knew what laybacks were, having have a few at way back in time at ChinaJump, before it closed down after The Great Darkness Descended - the handover - and all the Brits went home a year later [work visas were extended for only 12 months, in case you forgot].

The idea of another 'normal' bar was appealing, I must admit. There were still a shortage of places in Wanchai where younger people, non-hooker seekers could congregate. Carnegies still held the top-spot for legitimate expat outrage, for non-zombie females and civilian guys, but it was targeted at older expats and tourists, and therefore it was sprinkled with hookers in mufti. [Have I spoken about Carnegies before? If not, we'll talk later. You haven't really been to HK unless you've danced on the bar at Carnegies. I was a regular.] you could bring your parents to Carnegies and show them what an innocent fun time you were having in Asia. The same could not be said about the bars on either ide.

"Cool," I said. My beer was finished already. Marie was signaled. I held up a single finger as Lee's pint was still three-quarters full. She nodded.

Lee pulled out papers. Some were layout diagrams, some were typed notes. Obviously a prospectus, well obvious to someone who seen a prospectus before, but as this was my first, I tried to not prove my ignorance and so I said nothing. Or I said, "Fascinating," which is my code word for what-the-fuck.