Chapter

 42

That’s how the first hour started on Flight 2 to Hong Kong.

We weren’t the only passengers in first class, and although I’d flown “first” to New York, international travelers were different. I realized I was in the presence of wealthy vacationers as well as businessmen and women. As my friend had finally drifted off for that long-awaited nap, I had a chance to relax.

As I observed the first-class cabin, I thought how strange it was knowing I had the option to be wealthy or not. I could live with the money catering my every need or abandon it all. In my heart of hearts, I didn’t like what I had seen money do to people; so, I found myself worried the same would happen to me. I was no better prepared to handle the wealth than my snoring friend. Both of us had stumbled by dumb luck onto our riches. Neither of us understood what it all meant. Here I was running off to Hong Kong to play businessman, and I didn’t know the first thing about what I was doing. At least, I might bluff my way through with the broker contact Mathews had set me up with. This Gerald was going to finish his “round the world” trip and then what? More tasteless silk suits and pretentious shoes until the million was gone?

I looked around the cabin and wondered how these people of means felt deep down inside. Did I have the right to feel special just because I had such strong reactions to my thoughts? Maybe they did too. I was relying heavily on my intellect to constantly keep me grounded. It was hard not to indulge a little on Flight 2, though.

Sitting diagonally across the aisle from me, for example, was a woman in her twenties who gave me the impression, like several others in the forward cabin, that she was not happy being who she was. She was very attractive, well-groomed and clad in expensive clothes...the image of security and success. She seemed to surround herself with anger, though, and quietly and subtly over the past hour it had caused a sadness to well-up inside me.

She hadn’t been with an empty glass since take off. She had already put away continuous servings of scotch, wine, and now was nursing a brandy...a large brandy that seemed to never go down very far before it was topped up by an attendant. She would either pass out soon or lose herself further into the focus she had chosen...a focus that was grounding itself with the picking and tearing of napkins placed beneath each refill. No, passenger 2B was, temporarily at least, locked into a gaze fixed on the ceiling of the cabin where the movie screen had been pushed back an hour earlier. Wherever she was or had been...it wasn’t letting her go. I knew that feeling.

I looked away.

God, it was hard examining my surroundings now, knowing I had choices beyond most of those around me. Did I really understand enough about myself to handle the impact so much money could have on a person? I chuckled with the thought that I could afford to fly to Hong Kong on my own jet. That was more than a little frightening to the inner part of me that was still growing up.

I looked about me again. Had they earned the right to live lavishly, or had they come into their wealth by chance as I had? As Gerald had. Did it make any difference...really? I was fighting the urge to judge not only them, but myself.

I couldn’t deny these feelings about the rich, but I didn’t know where they came from. I had feelings about the homeless too, and I didn’t know where they came from. Could whoever I was trust the emotion the down-and-out survivors conjured up? And what about the feelings for Sara, Julian and Max.

I closed my eyes.

It was some time later when my ribs got their wake-up call from Gerald. “Oh my God...you gotta see this.”

I opened my tired eyes with a start. Gerald was leaning over my semi-prone body, peering out the window at our approach. “See what, Gerald?”

“China, man...I’m in...we’re in China. Just look at that.”

My eyes were still working up to a full opening, but I tried a look out the window. Below, the low clouds thinned-out giving momentary glimpses of a world unlike anything I had ever seen. A landscape of ultra-modern mixed with ancient history made its way down to the edges of the water separating Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Boats of every description dotted the bay, from junks to luxury yachts, fishing trawlers to san pans.

As the plane drew close to touching down, the aging gray and greens of old tenement buildings projected their reality against the runway boundaries. It was a strange, unsettling sight to see such old and run-down images mixed with the ultra-modern growth Hong Kong was known for. As I found myself staring at the impoverished families peering from their windowsills and fire escapes, I waited for his next elbow.

“Would you look at that?” exclaimed Gerald. “Who’d ever want to live next to an airport runway? How do they get any sleep with these noisy big things landin’ all night long?”

“I’d expect it’s not the sound that’s their biggest bother, Gerald.”

“Say what?” came Gerald’s retort as he craned his neck from window to window, trying not to miss a single image of what I presumed might have been his first vacation in a long time...maybe his first ever.

As I cleared customs, I saw that Gerald was waiting for me at the exit. He was standing beside a cart with his Samsonite matched luggage. Two men dressed like hitmen were arguing in their native tongue, gesturing at him as if he were the prize fare of the day.

“Hey, Charles...can I give you a lift? Got a limo with plenty of room.”

“You got a limo,” I said with as dry a reaction as I could.

“Well, hey...only win the Lotto once, right? You did say you were staying at the Mandarin and that’s where I’m parkin’ too.”

He snapped his fingers like a slave trader from the past making sure his coolies in suits knew who was boss.

Before I could respond, they relieved me of my suitcase and were motioning us toward the outside curb with smiles and jabber that probably meant Gerald had paid top price for this “on-the-spot” extravagance.

His arm swung around my shoulders in a “good old boy” gesture and as he pushed me along, “Know you got a lot to do, so this will get you there faster and...in style. C’mon.”

We stepped outside the terminal to a heat and humidity that made New York’s summer temperatures seem like mid-winter. The curbside was teeming with tourists maneuvering their way through the crowd to a bus or cab. On seeing this, I felt grateful for Gerald’s offer and was about to express my appreciation when it hit me.

There was an odor in the air...a sour, dank smell of mildew mixed with the generic aroma of a densely populated seaport. I knew this smell. I didn’t know where the association came from, but I knew I had experienced this odor before. My first thought was, had I been here before? Then my mind wandered into the probability that I was smelling something common to any number of urban coastal locations anywhere on the globe. Probably a New York or Los Angeles smell. Of course.

Gerald was no help, as his associations were quite different from mine. “Damn. Shit. Smells like a fuckin’ gym sock here.” The door to the Mercedes limo was opened for us, and Gerald’s courteous hospitality stepped aside as he lunged inside, urging me to hurry. As the “suit” closed the door, he sighed, “Whew.” Then he started sniffing the inside of the limo. “Outside was bad enough, but...goddamn. Hope it’s better on the other side.”

The “other side” was the main island of Hong Kong. It took us the better part of an hour to make our way through the tunnel lying beneath the Hong Kong Harbor. When we emerged on the other side, Gerald rolled down the window, took a whiff, rolled it back up and shook his head. “Didn’t come all this way to smell the shit I left behind in Oklahoma.”

He leaned forward and tapped the glass panel separating us from the driver and his co-pilot. “Hey, Chan buddy, this stink here all the time?”

The driver turned with his permanent smile, “Oh no, Misser Perwitt. Just super-hot day. All go bye-bye when temperature cool. Want more cold? Can make very cold and make smell…”

Gerald motioned no. “Jesus, gag ya outside, freeze your balls inside.”

At least I could look forward to new surroundings knowing Gerald wasn’t the most enjoyable part of my trip.

I was only a few hours away from realizing I was mistaken.

As we checked into the hotel, Gerald’s escorts changed the “baton” and suddenly, two Asian ladies were serving him. They each took an arm as we made our way to the elevator.

Gerald breathed in deeply as he leaned his six-foot-five body over their heads. “Ah...now that’s more like it. Smells like you girls just stepped out of a flower patch.”

They giggled as he winked in my direction, reminding me that savoir-faire was not his best suit. “Hey...” he leaned over to me, “Sure you don’t want to get in on with this? A grand a piece is a lot of pie and ice cream for just one ol’ country boy.”

I glanced up at the elevator numbers and realized I could be saved by the...yes. The doors opened. “Gerald...” I said, “Love to join you, but duty calls.”

I let him fill up the elevator with his seven pieces of luggage, two girls and two porters and then gracefully bailed out. “Hey,” I chuckled, “You got a full boat here. Maybe see you later.”

“Don’t count on it, ol’ buddy,” he said with a country laugh that set the girls giggling again. They laughed dumb, but their eyes told me they understood more than Gerald thought they did. As the doors closed, I turned to the other elevators with a sigh and a little prayer that Gerald would get through the day with most of his fortune still intact. Unlike me, he had no idea how costly being wealthy could be.

Standing at the window of my room, I took my pill as I had promised Mathews and stared out over the center of Hong Kong’s business district. My body was tired from the long trip and I needed a nap, so I slipped off my shoes and slumped into the overstuffed chair, remaining alert just long enough to realize something out there was catching my eye. A round building towered above the roofs of other structures, kicking the morning sun’s reflection in every direction like a stack of silver dollars. Something about that building kept me awake for another few moments until exhaustion took over. As my eyes fluttered shut, I thought once more about the peculiar odor I had experienced out there...and the attention-grabbing reflections of the skyscraper. Just a city reminding me of some other city I’d been in?