The next day saw the gang rise surprisingly early. They were full of enthusiasm for the day ahead, although not a man amongst them didn't look jaded from the previous evenings escapades.
Golem, surprisingly, took the lead on what they should get up to with their first full day. He had it all planned out he said, thanks to a trusty travel book, and as long as no one mucked and just let him sort it out with Sovi, then he said they'd have a good little day ahead of them.
He picked up his coffee cup, his hand shaking so much that he spilled it all over the table. We considered the spreading brown stain dubiously.
"You sure you're goin' to be alright organisin' things, Golem?" Frenchy asked.
"Yes, thanks," Golem replied waspishly.
"Even with your Parkinson's playin' up?"
"Bugger off, French," Golem snapped. "You know I get the shakes when I'm hungover."
An hour and a half later they piled into a minivan and the day began.
"We're getting cultural today, boys!" Golem yelled from the front seat as we wove through the teaming streets.
"Sounds awful," said Will.
After wending their way through the smoke and dust and roaring heat of the city and its one and a half million inhabitants, they headed a little way out into the immediate countryside, where they pulled up in front of an open-sided building, behind which was a long dirt bank about twenty meters away. Along the bank stood human-shaped silhouettes.
"Nice one, Golem, man!" Frenchy cried from the back.
"Shit, mate, I was absolutely expecting you to drop the ball on this excursion, aye," Charlie admitted.
"Ye of little faith," Golem smirked.
The door of the van slid open and Will went to get out, but before he could set foot in the dusty road Hugo sprang past him like a frog and ran towards a counter at the back of the open area. He had a hurried and emphatic-looking conversation with a Cambodian chap––with much gesticulating and hopping from foot to foot––and then waddled off towards a door.
"What the hell's wrong with him?" Will said, getting out of the van.
"I know, bro," said Dang, as he removed himself from the air-conditioned depths of the back seat and stepped out into the soupy air. He was smiling joyfully.
"What?"
Dang started choking with laughter. "He's running like a man who could shit through the eye of a needle, don't you reckon?"
Golem led the remaining four of us into the main staging area.
"I can't believe you brought us to one of these places, man!" Frenchy said, elbowing Golem. "A shootin' range!"
It was a shooting range, and the first one that Charlie, at least, had ever been to––despite having lived in the States for as long as he had. Guns had never interested him much outside of the movies. He'd hunted a bit as kid in New Zealand, shooting rabbits and possums because they were pests and because boys are a bit cruel, but that was about it.
This was quite another thing entirely.
"Jesus titty-fucking Christ," breathed Will.
"You ever seen anything like that before?" Charlie asked no one in particular.
Racks of guns lined the walls. Racks and racks and racks of the things. And they all gleamed dully. Evilly. They exuded malicious intent. If they were people, they'd be the type of blokes found in the wrong sort of pubs, waiting to catch someone's eye so that they could have a go at stabbing them to death with their own car keys.
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Sex, Drugs & No Idea
चिक-लिटUnexpected threesomes. Fighting midgets. Wrecking bathrooms. It isn't our grief that sets us apart, it is the manner in which we deal with it. Charlie Green is a mess. After surviving an accident that claimed the life of his partner and being sacked...
