Roy had a concerned look on his face, I was surprised he usually did not flinch much when faced with death, suffering or the cutting of genitalia, but here he was all concern for a man whom he wanted he feed a nut smoothie to. He came up to me and said “That cop stole my doughnut” , well there goes that theory of him being Mother Teresa, “He stole my doughnut and I’m gonna make him pay for it”, I really didn’t need this, having to bail Roy out over doughnut related violence was something I had grown tired off over the years, it invariably started with him waiting for some cop to eat his doughnut, followed by Roy walking over with a fresh box placing it open under the cop’s nose and then pretending to read the paper until the cop took one, blood and pubic hair often were a messy result, followed by me bribing a lot of people to get him out of prison.

“Look we don’t need this ok, a man got killed in our club, stuff like that tends to bring in a lot of negative publicity, plus there are a whole lot of reporters outside and I can’t be seen exiting the station, Johnny boy at the office is just waiting for a reason to throw me out”, Roy did not seem to hear what I said, he kept looking at the policeman eating the doughnut, it reminded me of an eagle watching a sparrow from a hill, a lion watching a buffalo across the Serengeti, a fat bald man watching one of the dancers in my club.

I screamed into his ear “ROY!”, that seemed to snap him out of it, throwing baleful glances at the cop he said as loud as he could “Know this pig, as sure as the Sun God Ra rides a boat every night and is re born off the Goddess Nut each day, so shall I have my revenge”, and he walked towards the prison cells. I was too dumbfounded for words.

I caught up to him as he made his way downstairs towards the holding cells,that’s when it hit me,I found out later, once I recovered consciousness, that “IT” was a policeman’s baton and IT resulted in me being thrown in the slammer for assaulting a police officer, Only in a shitty town like mine would the police office not even make a pretense of planting a weapon on me when setting me up , I was handcuffed to a chair, and I could see Roy already behind bars ,with his pants around his ankles and every other inmate at the opposite side of the cell.

I decided that the next person who causes me to get knocked out is going to drink a nut smoothie a la Roy.

Which meant that while John searched out the girl, I had two choices, do some work or take a break, I contemplated this as I walked into the strip club and met Roy.

Roy really didn’t do much but he was my fix-it guy and he could read the streets better than most people, which was good since he was functionally illiterate, plus he ran the strip joint for me when I wasn’t here and being there always helped me think.

I bought this place when I had to go legit after joining froggle, guess I just couldn’t leave this part of me behind, or maybe I just liked behinds.

I walked up to him and noticed that G was already there, he frequently came here, although not as much since he got married.

I narrated the mornings happenings to both of them, Roy listened, frequently spitting out a question, but mostly just spitting, we really had to get his nasal problem checked out some day, while the G man just sat quietly and listened.

Its then that we saw him enter, he was an average man in a dark suit, he took a seat next to us and ordered a beer, waving aside Cindy and her beautiful assets he looked pointedly at us.

“You the owner?” he asked me, I turned to him “Who wants to know?” , “My name is not important but you can call me Jones, I represent some powerful People, and these people have taken an active interest in your club”. I considered this, it wasn’t the first time I’d got an offer to sell, thanks to active talent scouting and campus recruitment I generally had the youngest and best talent in town, but it wasn’t just about the money, I had built this place myself, my sweat and blood along with a suspicious amount of Roy’s semen was in these walls.

I told the guy to finish his beer and get out. Apparently though he wasn’t done, “Ok Mike, I’ll cut to the chase, this isn’t about your two bit club, all we want is the merchandise you took from us last night.”

I grabbed him by the collar , “ What do you know about last night?”, He seemed unfazed, “Enough of the Alpha Male display Mikey” I hated people calling me that, “All we want is what belongs to us, do that and you get your Slutty girlfriend back, refuse and you still get her back… in pieces”.

I had heard enough, “Fix him Roy”, Roy got up, that evil grin on his face, it was part malice, part lust, he really did enjoy this part of his job description. He reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a lemon squeezer, this was not going to be pretty.

“Looks like we might just be making a nut smoothie” he said, advancing to our hapless visitor. “Technically a lemon squeezer is used to make juice” corrected the G man, we could always depend on him to keep his head.

Jones tried running out the door, but he couldn’t outrun Roy, “I think you better start talking Mr. Jones, Roy here is quiet hard to control once he wants to start playing.” Stupidly enough he didn’t seem convinced, this was cue enough for Roy to get out the blender from his bag “Is a blender used to make a smoothie?” he asked G, “yup that’ll do it the G man replied and turned back to the dancers.

“I think I’ll grind them and make him drink it”, we really had to stop Roy from watching all those SAW movies, “You’re Bluffing” Jones managed to squeak out, “I don’t even know what bluffing means” Roy replied to him, it was true, he really didn’t know what it meant, someday I would have to sit him down and teach him. Roy was looking down at his crotch, I guess he thought bluffing meant that his package was hanging out or that his fork was open. Satisfied that, that was not the case, he switched on the blender.

“I’ll talk“ Jones had had enough, “It’s the King, he want the package returned”, The G man turned away from the dancers, “Elvis is dead” the G man was passionate about Elvis, and talk about him invariably got G interested.

“No, the King of Nepal, he wants his merchandise retuned”, we didn’t know what to make of this, this was possibly the longest time I had been in the club and not looked at the dancers once, I did that now.

“That is completely retarded, Nepal is no longer a Monarchy it’s a federal democratic republic, it has a constitutionally elected parliament that declared it so on December 28 2007 “once again the G man was on the case “That’s December 27 2007” I corrected. “December 28” muttered G under his breath, “Ok we’ll get to the King later” I wanted to keep Jones focused, “Tell me about the package”, “you don’t know what’s in it?” he definitely looked scared now.

Its then that the lights went out, I heard a shot, followed by screaming, someone switched on the light, Jones was dead, customers scurried out, the girls ran into the back room, Roy ran to the door, lemon squeezer in hand, he returned a few seconds later, “Black sedan, no license plate, I’ll call the cops”.

I left him to do that, I needed a drink

“So what’s a girl like you doing in a car like this?” I followed this up with another regrettable wink, she looked at me with those green eyes and said “Maybe one day we’ll both find out”, and this to me sounded like a second date was a distinct possibility except I really wasn’t sure I had had a first date.” I’m sorry I got you into this Mike, you really seem like a nice guy”, I wasn’t sure what she meant, looking at her I was sure that if I could remember last night, anything I got  into would only be described as ‘Happy times for Mike’

The next few seconds were a blur, what I did recall later once I regained consciousness was a blue Van speeding out of a side street and smashing into E`s car, I woke up on the side walk, she was no where to be seen, apart from a few minor cuts and bruises I pronounced myself fit, which was more than what I could say about E`s car.

I walked the rest of the way to office, I had already woken up twice today not knowing where I was and how I got there, this day was probably not going to go well.

I work at froggle its one of the biggest search engines in the world, I had originally started out as a purveyor of pleasure unofficially known as a pimp and some headhunter from froggle after making use of my services was suitably impressed, apparently I had what it takes to be a Team Leader in the I.T. industry. It was doubtful if I was making more money in I.T. as compared to my previous job, but hey atleast I got free coffee.

A lot of people don’t know this about froggle, but we know everything, yes everything there is to know about everyone, your height, weight, DNA sequence, if you voted, we know who you voted for, if you cheated on your wife, we have the video, didn’t wash your hands while leaving the restroom…well that’s just disgusting.

Anyway my point is that I needed to be nice to my boss today if I was to have any chance of finding out who this mysterious girl who entered my life was. “Hey asshole, I’m not your secretary” bellowed Gordon from his cubicle, we shared the same phone and his constant grouse was having to take messages for me.

“Anyway, it was the girl you slept with this morning”, I stopped dead in my tracks, news really seemed to travel fast, even in froggle, “What are you talking about?” I asked him, “Well she was crying right, any girl that knows you and ends up crying has no doubt slept with you recently” he almost choked on his laughter, or maybe it was because I was choking him.

After a while I released my grip on his neck,” Why dya do that for? I was just pulling your leg”, “Yeah well I was just choking your neck” I continued, “Now talk, what did she say?” , “Nothin really, she could only manage a ‘Help me Mike’ before the line got cut off”

I left him rubbing his neck, I really had to meet with the boss now, I was determined to get to the bottom of this whole thing. My boss was Jonathan, we had a fairly friendly relationship, like all friends there was the occasional hazing, putting salt in the coffee, glue on the chair, itching powder in the pants and also the occasional stapler to the fingers, it was made all the more funnier by the fact that he did not infact know that we had this playful hazing going on and so lived in constant fear of me.

“Morning Johnny Boy!” I said in my most cheerful voice, trying hard not to get distracted by the stapler on his desk, “Don’t call me that Mike, Call me Mr. Dent and then get out of my office”, “Alright, ‘Good morning Mr. Dent-and-get-out-of-my-office’, I need to get under MOM’s skirts”, he looked up suspiciously at me and replied “I thought I told you that you were not getting under MOM`s skirts ever again, the last time you did that, it took us weeks to get rid of the virus you gave MOM

At this point I pause to explain MOM is an acronym for Metaspurical Oxyhydroxilating Mainframe, a fancy name for where we keep all the info we have on everyone, and skirts of course refers to the multiple layers of security and encryption required to get access to said info.

“Look John its different this time, someone’s life might be in danger.”, he did not seem impressed, “Let me guess you met some girl last night and she left without saying much this morning and now you want to find her cause she might have stolen your wallet”, I would have been impressed by how astute he was, except that this was the reason I had used MOM the last time.

“Look John, please a series of really bizarre stuff happened this morning and life is literally slapping me in the face asking me to investigate this, slapping me you hear?” I slapped him a few times to underscore my point, he was not moved, I decided to change tactics, ”She called a few minutes back asking for my help man, this after I was run off the road and nearly killed”

He contemplated this and then told me to jump off the building; I reached for the stapler, “alright Mike, you made your point” he had backed off like all cowards do when faced with the force of truth, justice and a man with a stapler, “I’ll look under MOM`s skirts and get the information to you, just send me her name and a description and we’ll see what we can work out”

I left his office a little more at ease than when I had entered it, but now I had to go meet the scum of the earth, the bane of mankind’s existence, a leech on the butt of life, I had to meet my HR representative

She was still asleep, all five feet six inches of her, or maybe it was six feet five inches, I`ve always been bad at judging peoples height so whatever her height she was not short that much was sure.

It was one of those mornings when your brain refuses to remember what happened the previous night and it sounded like one of those old fashion train whistles was on non stops in your ears, or it could that my house was near a railway yard, either way my head was hurting.

I walked to the bathroom but the door was locked and apparently it was occupied, sounds of “hit me baby one more time” came from within apparently my roommate “E baba” had woken up before me.

I went back to my room and lit a cigarette, she stirred in bed, it was clear this is one of those moments when you need to remember her name before she woke up, I tried bribing my brain with the nicotine shot but it was still refusing to co-operate. I had to find another way, looking around the room inspiration struck me when I saw her bag.

I unzipped it and the sound of it ran through my brain like a chain saw running on napalm, so I stopped dropped and rolled ,then realizing that I was not on fire I went back to the bag, It was already half open but opening it further was not something I was looking forward to.

As I sat cross legged on the floor the bag before me I was suddenly engulfed in shadow, she had woken up, even my alcohol doused cerebellum agreed she looked good, all seven feet eight inches of her. I hastily stood up explanations at the ready, but she hadn`t seen me, apparently whatever mistake I made last night she was an accomplice to it.

She finally turned towards me, we stared at each other for a while finally she said “good morning Dick” which was strange, mainly cause my name was not dick. I decided to play along “Good Morning….umm to you”.” Cant remember by name can you?”, normally I`d have something to say but my head had decided to call it a day and go home. “gmm umm grrrh” I replied suavely. “Its ok I Didn`t remember your name either”, “Then why did you call me dick?”, “Its written with magic marker on your tummy, right there above the…arrow…pointing…” she stopped speaking then.

Its then that I had the first of many epiphanies of the day, I was as naked as the day I was born, trying to play it cool I sprinted for the door, and ran into E baba as he was finishing his soulful rendition of “I`m not a girl not yet a woman” we fell down the stairs and landed in front of the couch with just E baba`s towel protecting our combined honors.

G baba my other roommate came out of his room put on his shoes looked down at us and said “See you for breakfast in the canteen” and left for office. Taking the towel I limped back to my room. She was dressed. “I`ll leave now” she said, “well atleast tell me your name” I groaned in reply holding my back. “Penelope Poison”, wow she must have had a tough childhood, “Well Penelope I`m Mike aka M baba and let me get dressed and I`ll drop you home.”

I got dressed and we stepped over E baba still unconscious and towel less on the living room floor,” aren`t you gonna help him?” she asked , I thought for a while and placed a Muesli box strategically over him. “Is that ok?” she asked “Yup” I replied “I ate the last of the Muesli a few days back”. The front door closed behind us but the day had just begun to open up on me.