Oscars Island Pt 4. The map.

Another quiet afternoon by the pool. It’s hot here and humid. So humid in fact that you can work up a sweat just getting the cap off a beer bottle. Fortunately Oscar’s staff take care of all the menial tasks.

The old blog’s getting to be a bit of a mess lately. So am I. Need to get my finger out. It’s always the bloody same when Oscar’s around. I’ll admit he’s helped me out of a few tight spots but he’s got me into new ones soon after. No trouble yet but I know it’s coming.

“Seriously Dick,” says Oscar one day, “you need to do something about your blog. If you just go rambling on like this you will lose readers. They'll wander off looking for titillation. Come with me. I want to show you something.”

He takes me off into a sort of study and shuts the door. He gets a roll of tracing paper out of a wall safe and spreads it out on a big mahogany table. It looks like some kind of rubbing. “OK.” says Oscar, “here’s the map.”

Then he starts to tell me how he was wandering around the island when he spots a sort of cave in a hillside.

“I crawl in,” says Oscar, “and it turns out to be a bat-cave.”
“Was Robin in there?” I ask.
“No Dick, he wasn’t. But thanks anyway for the smart-ass comment. Just a few bats hanging around. Noctilio leporinus according to Fabiani who knows a thing or two about bats. Incidentally Dick do you know where the name ‘bat’ comes from?”
“Yes. Want me to tell you?”
“Sure.”
“It comes from Old Norse "ledhrblaka," which means "leather flapper." It became "bakka" somehow and then "bat" in English.”
“Right. So I had a look around inside the cave and I noticed a few squiggly lines on the wall.”
“Then you went home for some tracing paper….”
“Copied the map and…”
“Don’t tell me…hidden treasure!!” There are no flies on Dick Headley.
We study the map together in silence for a while. It doesn’t look like much. A splodge that could be an island I suppose, a line that could be a track and a small X off in one corner. Could be a bit of bat shit for all I know.

But Oscar’s excited. He went looking for the spot he says and found a flat rock that didn’t look natural. It was too heavy for him to lift on his own.
“I’d like to keep this just between the two of us if possible Dick. There’s going to be some digging to do. I could get some guys over from Tortola but it would be all over the Caribbean in 5 minutes. I need your help Dick. Somebody I can trust.”
​
Sounds like a load of bollocks to me.

“I don’t quite get it Oscar.” I say, “This treasure business. You don’t need more money surely.”

Oscar thinks for a while, scratches his horrible hairy belly and says, “It’s greed Dick. Sheer greed. And the fact that I’m bored stiff. I need a bit of excitement in my life. Plus it could be just the thing to liven up your blog.”

Oscar's Island Pt. 3., Divine Comedy.

'What's with the swivel gun?' I ask one evening as we are watching the sun set over the Caribbean.
'Found it in the lagoon,' says Oscar,' thought it might come in handy.

Cleaned it up. Not sure if it works.'
'Got any gunpowder? We could take potshots at the flamingos.'
Just kidding of course. I love birds.

More harmless banter ensues. We get chatting about the old days in LA and Manila.
 
‘Whatever happened to ChuckWoww?’
 
‘Funny you should ask Oscar. I ran into him in Thailand. He was working at the US Embassy.

CIA I think. Came in my bar in Pattaya from time to time. He wrote a book called ‘Losing the Plot’.’
 
‘What about your pal Simon?’
 
‘He’s in London. Got his own TV show. Still dabbling in real estate which he finds quite lucrative.’
 
‘Who writes this stuff anyway Dick? Not ChuckWoww is it?’
 
‘Wish I knew. Whoever he/she is seems to enjoy stringing words together.

It started out as something called Brighton Line. Now it's you and me sitting here getting drunk.

I assume there’s some underlying meaning. Or perhaps it’s not for me to know and all will be

revealed at some point.’
 
Oscar appears interested so I continue.
 
‘I’m just the narrator. Which means they send me files in random order.

It’s my tone they want I think. I put my stamp on them and send them back.

Someone else can sort them out. It must have been a bit like that for William Burroughs in Tangiers.

 Pages of stuff all over the place. Nothing making sense.

The answer? Stick it all in the post and let the editor sort it out.

(That was Allen Ginsberg in Burroughs case). My editor lives in a modernized farmhouse in Tuscany.
 
From time to time I get emails from budding young narrators asking me how I do it.

How do you manage to sound so natural Dick they ask? Well there’s no trick to it really.

I just narrate like I talk. Course that doesn’t always mean I know what I’m talking about but

if I get the tone right nobody minds too much.’
  
Oscar has fallen asleep.

Oscar's Island Pt. 2. Trumped.

Next morning I find Oscar on the terrace having breakfast. Bottle of Mountgay it looks like.
 
There’s an old cannon mounted on the wall and pointing out to sea. I hadn’t noticed it last night. Looks like a 3-pounder, probably Spanish. Then I get a whiff of frangipani, ‘dama de noche’ as the Spanish call it. The smell takes my mind back to Manila when things were hopping in Ermita. I’d walk down Del Pilar every evening on the way to work and pick a blossom or two to hold under my nose.
​
It’s a beautiful view out across the lagoon towards the East dotted with small islands. Oscar picked a nice spot I must say. The hillside is bright green, the ocean is blue and there’s a splash of pink from the group of flamingos.

“See,” says Oscar,” they’re looking better already.”
“Must be the shrimp,” I said, “seems to suit them.”
Such a relaxing place. I just want to let my mind go blank. The last thing I want to do is discuss geopolitics and suddenly he starts talking about the future of western civilization.That’s Oscar, he likes a good rant to start the day.

“We’re doomed Dick,” he says. “As a species. Doomed by our own greed. Overcrowding, pollution, cholesterol, global warming, if some new disease doesn’t wipe us out we’ll blow ourselves up. Just a question of time. And if none of that happens we’ll get hit by an asteroid sooner or later just you wait.”
“Nice to see you so cheerful this morning Oscar,” I say.
“Not a question of cheerful Dick. Just being realistic. The world’s fucked. And that includes America. The days of cheap land and unlimited resources have gone. The good times are over. Now America is run by Wall Street and Rupert Murdoch. And the CIA, They are watching us from satellites as we speak. And when they’re ready they'll hand everything over to the Chinks. And they’re in cahoots with the Ay-rabs. One day, people will wake up and the world will be wall-to-wall Walmart with mullahs on every aisle reciting verses from the Koran. If we don’t all get beheaded. Obama’s a goddam muslim.”

Then he gets started on Iraq. Or Eye-rak as he calls it.
“All the fucking ragheads should be nuked,” he says. (This is the kind of thinking that separates us from the animals.)
“Aw, leave the poor sods alone,” I say, “why stir them up?”
“Leave them alone?!” he yells, “Leave them alone! What about 911? They fucking attacked us!!!”
Strewth, he’s on good form this morning. He’s starting to look genuinely pissed off.  Once he gets worked up it’s hard to stop him.

There’s no point arguing with him when he’s in this mood. Just makes him worse. A few times I’ve told him he’s full of shit and he starts screaming and shouting I don’t know anything etc. etc. Don’t get me wrong. I like the bloke. We’ve had some good laughs over the years but lately he’s got awful touchy. Where does all the anger come from? He's filthy rich, owns a beautiful island. Why take it out on me? I pass the Mountgay and he calms down a bit.

“The fucking planet is overpopulated.” He says, “What we need is a good cull. Maybe some kind of epidemic. And don’t get me started on Vladimir fucking Putin.”
​
I’ve got no problem with Vlad to be honest but I keep my thoughts to myself.  Can’t post stuff like that on the blog. People will call me a Putin-lover. So I try to change the subject. I bring up my problems with the blog. I tell Oscar how it needs some kind of theme or story line and he says,
“Why not just have a good rant? It’s your blog you can say what you want. What’s the blog thing about then?” So I tell him about how I started posting on the internet. Just for something to do like.
“Ever thought about publishing it?” Oscar asks.
“Don’t be daft. Who would publish it?”
“Oh, I know people in New York,” says Oscar. “Of course it would need some work. Where are you going with it exactly? You don’t have a coherent plot and the characters need fleshing out. Fancy yourself as a writer do you Dick?”
“I’m not. That’s the trouble. I get in a real mess with the dialogue sometimes. Especially when I’m pissed.”
“I’ll get another bottle.” Says Oscar.
 Bastard. No respect for the fiction process.