Devil to PayPart 1Yeah, I suppose, in retrospect - with distance lending enchantment, and all that shit - I suppose you could say we all learned something from the experience. Billy learned about rope and knots. Viggo learned about give and take. Orli learned that cleanliness was next to godliness. Elijah - ah! Lighe learned when to keep his mouth shut - and I...well, I learned...you'll see. I'm writing it down because I've been told it helps to channel thoughts and feelings after an incident. Fuck channelling them! I'd just like to exorcise a few of the little buggers! Sitting here, in sunny California, in our little three-roomed hideaway near Redondo Beach, thousands of miles in distance, and light years in standards and custom, from where it happened, I feel safe for the first time in fucking weeks! Shit! I look over at him.., my love, sitting on a sun lounger, eating apples, and reading a book, and marvel that nothing of what occurred marks his face. It's all inside - like Frodo, he carried it. But it is coming out, slowly. Last night, after the second nightmare of the week, he wept in my arms, until he could cry no more. "Sblomie...swear you'll never let me go!" You'd think the nightmare had been his, poor little bugger. It hadn't. This time it was mine. I swore I'd never let him go - I meant it. Only death will part us, now. Sound like something corny from West Side Story? Yeah, but that was a fucking comedy compared to what happened out there. Will I let our kids read this - when we have any, that is? No fucking way! Lighe had been making a film on the Balkan outskirts. A spy thing, lots of chases in cars around hairpin bends, and leaping off rocks. I had gone as a German translator, arranged by Lighe as a free three month holiday. Half the crew happened to be German, and it was nice for them to know exactly what was being said to them. Lighe also wanted a friend to be with him. I had nothing coming up for four months, and shoots could be lonely. I was the friend. I was nothing more - believe it! I wished I was more with all my heart, but he gave me no sign. I resigned myself to friendship. Half a loaf... We were knackered after the three month shoot. We needed a fucking break. Viggo, on the phone to a pissed-off Lighe, suggested that we all went skiing. Lighe protested that he'd never been on skis in his life. Billy, desperate for some Hobbit interaction, pointed out to him, via my mobile the next day, that he'd never been on a surfboard until New Zealand - so that was settled, then. We met Viggo, Billy and Orli in Switzerland, in a minibus, and drove them through interminable mountain passes and over glaciers, through checkpoints and borders, and countries with unpronounceable names, until we got to the glorious village of Inzrebic - or something like that, anyway. This village, not renowned on the tourist itineraries of the world (this is why we chose it) had one hotel with eight bedrooms, sixteen cows who all took to the streets together, and blocked the traffic, one fucking taxi, a church, two shops and a tavern. Perfect! By the time we had reached this remote hideaway - not too far from some very impressive ski slopes, one may add - Orli was moaning about his back, Billy was desperate for a pint, and Viggo - Viggo had a forty verse saga in Norwegian, or something, burgeoning in his brain. Bastards! Lighe and I just wanted us dinners! Later that evening we pored over the map, trying to find out just where the fuck we were. "Right!", said Lighe, hovering indecisively over the map with a pencil. "Switzerland is way over here (points) and Germany is ...um, so there wherethefuckare we, Dom?" I took pity, and a firm grip on the pencil. Waving it in the general direction of a Balkan border (outlined in red, like the British Empire on which the sun never sets, ha ha), I stabbed it down with more verve than accuracy. "We are here!" I said, with confidence. If in doubt, always with confidence. The hotel proprieter, Mistilavic - pronounced Mistilavic - shook his head, and said, in mangled German, that his father would be upset by the hole I'd made in it, as he'd had that map since the Second World War. As Missy, himself, looked about ninety fucking six, I was nearly inclined to disbelieve him! Everyone looked at the map, and smiled. A holiday in peaceful mountains, surrounded by rural splendour. Stupid bastards we were! Naive. Trusting. There was an air of expectancy about the place. I said this to Viggo. "Yeah, they're expecting an input of American dollars from us to offset the National Debt". Lighe smiled. "Perhaps they can afford to get some stuff in, then. All the women, even the young ones, dress in black fucking sacks! How gross is that?" Right! Where was I? Where were we? Halfway up a mountain, somewhere in Europe, where there were a lot of goats and people speaking a language so foreign to us, it made Sindarin and Quenya sound easy. If you could have heard Lighe trying to pronounce the names of some of the villages we passed, you'd have had hysterics. Viggo, of course (clever bugger) had no such problem. We were off in search of stronger ale, which, we were told, was to be had fifteen miles up the valley. Shit, we were away! "What 's this village called, dude? Crnshyc...what, Viggo? Don't they know what a fucking vowel is, out here, for fuck's sake?", Lighe said, exasperated, leaning out through the bus window, with his foot on Billy's neck, trying to point out to Orli the ox pulling a plough in the field. Billy grabbed at the steering wheel with a resigned sigh, and reinforced his grip. "Elwood - get your fucking boot out of my ear, you daft cunt! I'm trying to drive here! We see those in Britain all the time, man, so Orli's not going to have an orgasm over a fucking ox, even if you do!" Lighe subsided, grinning. Then leapt up again as he spotted the next wonder. "Ooh, what a cute little house! It's got a well outside of it! Will you look at that!" He marvelled. "Straight from the Bible!" Viggo ruffled his hair. He was so enthusiastic, it was pathetic. Bless! At least I spoke German, and some of the locals did, too, - except some of the older residents were uneasy with the language, remembering former times - but altogether it wasn't too bad - when we sat in a tavern, drinking some sort of rot-gut with the locals, in between forays up the piste, at least we could order the fucking bevvies in! As today proved! "Don't drink any more of that stuff, dude! You'll be up all night..." "...Yeah!" I must've sounded a bit too enthusiastic. "Shut up, you cunt! I meant up all night hurling!" Lighe giggled, and poked me in the gut. I sniffed. "At least, if I do, It'll be in solitary splendour, matey! Not like you puking all over me in New Zealand - more often than I care to remember! I was piste off about that!" Nobody got it. Philistines! Lighe smiled mistily at me - remembering. "From the solitary splendour of my attic room in the luxury hovel - I mean hotel - of Inzre-whatever, I shall think of you, dude, as you attempt, valiantly, to throw up in the wash basin, as it's all you'll have! En suite is a mystery to these people, isn't it?" Billy snorted. "Fucking glad they've got flush lavvies, me, kiddo! Don't knock it, Lij, until you have to use one of those "hole in the floor" things, with just footmarks on the ground, and a handle on the wall to hang onto. At least you can piss in a sink!" Billy sank his drink, heroically. It tasted like shite - but it was stronger, so we weren't moaning....much. Lighe looked disgusted. His mouth hung open with horror. How I longed to take that shiny, moist lower lip into my mouth and suck on it - fuck! I was mad for him! Had been for bloody years! But he never noticed. Bastard!... Nah! I love him too much for that! Viggo was writing something or other in his book, biting the end of his pencil in concentration, and Orli, pissed at being ignored by the artist/poet/linguist/actor/man of his dreams, tried a half hearted flirtation with a waiter called Botoslav or something...who was about four foot six and had a moustache like a fucking walrus! Talk about desperate! Always knew the Elf had a penchant for bloody Hobbits! "Men!", drawled Viggo, putting his pencil and book away, "Time to head back! That is, unless you fancy dinner here?" He raised a questioning brow, and gestured, significantly, at our surroundings. "Fuck, no!", Elijah said, quietly, but with feeling. "I saw Fat Momma's apron earlier. There was more food on it than there is in the kitchen! God!" He shivered, elegantly. Fucking Drama Queen! - but he made me smile! Viggo was designated driver - not that it mattered here, half way up a fucking mountainside - but we liked to be careful. Life is precious...don't chuck it away! We piled into the minibus, and lifted the crate of bottles we'd bought for consumption later in the week - it was Monday - and bowled off, rather erratically....as tarmac was, to the road builders of this god-forsaken place, unknown. God-forsaken! All I know is that Lighe was very grateful - very fucking grateful - for a tentative hold on a deity, in the weeks to come. So was I. It all began when a big boulder appeared in the middle of the winding dirt road. Viggo pulled up - there was no way we could pass it. "That bugger wasn't there on the way up, Dom, was it?", Billy queried, staring at it as if it was moon rock. "Nah!", I said, just about to get out, to investigate. I froze. Pointing, through the open window, straight at Lighe's head, was a gun. |