“Those birds at the Russian massage parlour on Gunnersbury Avenue.”
“Kum Guzzling Traktor Sluts?”
“You know the place?”
“Only to walk by it, Neal. Frankly, I find the flyer cello-taped to their front doorway’s glass offensive to women and people of taste and refinement everywhere, not just West London.”
“Oh, Raymond, you’re the king of the purchased wank, so you’re the last person who should be judgmental. And those girls on Gunnersbury—so new to democracy and freedom and its ways—were so kind. They were always willing to feed me and take care of me when life on the streets got too rough. But forget all of that. Last night, once I realized where I was, I couldn’t sleep. So some of the lads took me out in the Jeep—full moon!—and we visited the strategic points of Battlefield 1943, like connoisseurs discussing brandy, stopping in all the best spots. We got to waste a whopping good bundle of ordnance out by the rusting Jap tank in the lagoon and we got to blow shit up, including the remains of the Pan Am Clipper dock! Funny, but these airmen all feel like brothers to me now. A band of brothers is what we are.” A tear ran down Neal’s cheek.
“Neal, fucking hell. Remember who you are.”
“Sorry, mate. I’m just sentimental is all. We’ve been through some things together, you, my brothers and me.”
Oh. My. God. Neal was confusing reality with his video game experiences. “Neal! Kum Guzzling Traktor Sluts!” I slapped him, and some semblance of sanity returned to his face.
“Sorry, Ray.”
We heard polite applause for the hatchet juggler. I looked over at my tormentor, the flawlessly uniformed witch. She saw me staring her way, smiled and grabbed her soup spoon. She stood up and tinged her glass, and the room—maybe two hundred enlisted folk—went quiet. “Timothy,” she said to the previous act, “thank you for your juggling magic, and thanks to all the other participants in today’s end-of-project Celebration of Excellence fun.” She cleared her throat. “Gang, today’s a big day for all of us, and I don’t need to say why. We’ve worked hard as a team to fulfill our Wake Island mission, and in a few short hours we’ll have some results—photos and data—and we’re all excited about that.”
What the fuck?
“It can be a tough life working here: hot days followed by nights that somehow feel hotter. Weeks that go by without a breeze, and then suddenly we get a typhoon. One thing for certain is that we’re never at a loss for extremes on Wake Island.
“But one extreme we don’t get enough of here is the extreme of talent. I took piano lessons. Maybe you did, too. Or clarinet or electric guitar. We’re all old enough to know that talent is something either you’re born with or you aren’t. So imagine my pleasure to learn that we have a celebrity visitor here on the island who’s going to help us kick off our great day of days …”
Mumbles of expectation.
“Today I present to you the beloved well-kept-secret English entertainment treasure, Mr. Raymond Gunt.”
22
Up front, a set of packing crates was stacked in a formation replicating the estate housing from the previous evening’s DVD. I tried putting myself into some kind of stoked mindset, but really, if they were going to do council housing, why not take some bags of flour and throw them around to represent recently raped unwed mums left for dead? Or at least bundles of palm husks to signify pensioners stabbed for the postage stamps in their purses and also left for dead?
A faint drumbeat began to emerge in stereo from speakers on either side of the crates. Lieutenant Nielson continued: “So let’s all get ready to enjoy a sweet treat from the land of tea and hard-to-digest food. Craig and Justine from the radiological data interpretation team have helped assemble today’s sound system. Thanks, guys!”
Crap! She wasn’t going to give me a chance to introduce myself and turn the dance event into a fundraiser for the world’s useless people. How dare that sociopathic gorgon deprive me of my right to help the planet! I mean, was it wrong to want to bring even a whiff of joy to someone with a shit life? It wasn’t my problem they had no money or some disease. What mattered was that I cared about helping humanity.
I realized that, in my head, I was sounding like some lefty feel-good brochure entitled “Self-Esteem,” which you find untouched in a Boots pharmacy waiting area, right beside the pamphlet titled, “So Your Urethra Is Starting to Burn.”
Lieutenant Jennifer was winding up. “And now, Wake Island, put your hands together for the dance stylings of Raymond Gunt, a man who only wants to bring joy and magic to all our lives—but not scary magic, because that would be contrary to Christian beliefs. Take it away, Raymond, with your interpretation of ‘The Angry Dance’ from the beloved film Billy Elliot!”