CHAPTER THREE

I WISH I HAD A SUPERMODEL’S LEGS

“What do we do now?” Henry asked, sipping from a gin bottle, absolutely showing no emotion, even Jesus could’ve come back and Henry would have gone, “Hey, what’s up?”

“We should panic,” I said, ‘Larry, did you get those visas?’

“YES!” Larry cried, as if in cringing pain.

“Wicked!” Henry said, “Your plan actually worked!”

“Then let’s get going!” I said, hurrying towards the two suitcases we had packed.

“We’re all gonna die!” Larry moaned, with his face plastered against the wall.

I grabbed Larry by his shoulders and slapped him across the cheek a couple of times.

“Alright! Focus!” I said, “Tell us what you saw!”

Larry looked at me and I could tell that he had undergone great trauma. With the fake caring looking my shrink gives me all the time, I looked at Larry and asked him to tell the truth.

Shivering, Larry looked me back in the eye and told us his tale.

“I had gotten those visas and the tickets when…” Larry said, every word trickling out of his mouth painfully slow.

“Business class or economy?” Henry interrupted, puffing at his cigar and showing absolutely no alarm like the rest of us.

Larry avoided that ridiculously timed question and continued with his story and I thought it was prudent on his part to do so. Friendship with Henry had taught me that it’s not wise to humor Henry when he’s drunk and high on nicotine. He was a real life example of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We might as well as call him, Dr. Henry and Mr. Jackass.

“First of all, I thought it was just a harmless bunch of bearded middle-aged Arab tourists walking behind me but it was when they followed into a café on Southampton Row, my suspicions became stronger,” Larry said.

“Pray continue,” I said, rubbing my chin.

“I took the table by the window facing the road, while this bunch of Arabs seated themselves across me, three tables away,” Larry said. “I ordered black coffee and some doughnuts and waited to confirm my suspicions.”

“BUNCH OF ARABS FOLLOWING YOU EVERYWHERE YOU GO AFTER YOU MADE OUT WITH A SHEIKH’S DAUGHTER, HOW MUCH MORE CONFIRMATION YOU NEEDED, YOU DAFT COW?” Henry yelled at the top of his lungs.

“I was just too scared! I didn’t know what to do!” Larry confessed, “I guess I was just buying some time to cook up a plan or something.”

“Get to the point, Larry, we don’t have much time if what you say is true,” I said.

Larry nodded his head and continued. “Those Arabs kept staring at me like a hawk staring at a wee little poor mouse…”

“For now, we can do without the similes and metaphors, Larry. Keep it simple,” I interjected.

Poor Larry nodded his head again but his lips failed to show any movement.

“OH! OUT WITH IT, YOU MISERABLE TOSSER!” Henry chided, dangerously aiming his half-full gin bottle at Larry’s head.

Then with a sudden burst of explosive energy, Larry spurted out the brief details.

“After about five minutes, the Arabs got a call from someone, probably the Sheikh and they started to close on me which is when I crashed out of the café through the window and ran for my life.

Somehow I managed to get on the tube and lost them.”

As Larry concluded his little narrative, I slowly rose to my full height.

“Don’t you think the first place these people are going for us will be this place?” I asked, swallowing half of the question in fear.

“WHAT?” Henry shouted.

Looking at the stupid drunken stupor that he was in, it only made my blood boil.

“This is the first place they’re gonna be looking for us, you dumb dung beetle!” I exclaimed in rage.

“LET’S GET OUTTA HERE!”

Saying so, I grabbed the two suitcases we had packed and headed for the door, when I realized that the other two weren’t as enthused as me by my idea.

“WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU, GUYS?” I asked, looking rather crestfallen.

“Our game is up,” Larry said, “We’ve got nowhere to go.”

“NO! NO! NO!” I exclaimed, “Don’t give up now, we can make it to the airport and once we get on the plane, they can’t get to us!”

“I agree with Larry on this,” Henry said in an irritating tone. “We are done.”

“NO! WE AIN’T” I shouted, “AND YOU BOTH ARE COMING WITH ME THIS INSTANT!”

“Yeah! Good luck with that, chap,” Henry said, taking a huge gulp from his gin bottle.

For a moment, I just looked at them both in pure unadulterated rage before grabbing the visas and the tickets from Larry.

“Alright!” I said, at last, “I am going! If anyone of you want to join me, this is your last chance!”

No reaction. Larry continued sulking, Henry continued drinking and I decided it was better for me to continue going.

“FAREWELL!” I said defiantly, keeping my chin as high as possible and turned towards the door. I dropped Henry’s suitcase and walked to the stairs when suddenly I thought that I had heard a stampede downstairs. I leaned myself to see what was that commotion all about, when I saw five burly bearded men covered in white from head to toe rampaging and furiously leaping on the stairs towards me.

My brain and heart froze for a second before I even became aware of what was going on. When I did became aware, I realized my body wasn’t still aware of the seriousness of the situation. My body was paralyzed, including my vocal cords. I found it impossible to shout and warn my friends, not that they were going to heed my warning and save themselves but still I couldn’t do anything.

Those five burly men were still two floors below me and I was quite thankful that the elevators were out of order but anyway it wasn’t going to make any difference. I was still going to end up dead. All of a sudden, when these men were still one and a half floors away, I felt a hand on my shoulder which jerked me back to life.

I turned back. It was Larry and I yelled at the top of my lungs and he returned the favour, much louder.

“THOSE ARABS ARE HERE!” I shouted and suddenly, our most basic survival mechanisms kick-started in our brains and we dashed back into the apartment. I slammed the door shut and locked it away.

“Why are you two ladies so worked up?” Henry asked, with a cocky smile.

“THOSE ARABS ARE HERE!” Larry yelled at him.

Henry looked at us dumbfounded for half a moment and then he said, “Sod off!”

As soon as he had said that, we heard the door being smashed from the other side.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

The three of us shrieked, like a bunch of teenage girls confronted by a one-eyed killer with a huge axe and no pants.

Larry and I rushed to the window where Henry had made himself comfortable and threw ourselves up against him. We snowballed onto clotheslines and wooden boards below, before finally crashing onto the garbage heap on the ground.

The garbage pile was thankfully quiet big enough to break our fall and also not organic. Man, it would have been such a shame, if we had gone running around the city with decaying food and baby poo all over our faces. As soon as we had landed on the ground, we heard shots being fired above us.

“These guys mean business!” I croaked, crushed by the weight of two fully grown men on top of me.

“Come on, let’s get going!” Larry cried, pulling at my hand amid the shower of bullets all around us.

“Sweet mother of Jesus, they’ve got shotguns!” Henry said, as he helped himself to his feet.

Larry held Henry’s and my hand and started running, “We got to make it to the station!” Larry whispered, as we ran away from those beefy Arabs and their shotguns.

“WHAT?” I cried, “What did you say?”

“We got to make it to the station,” Larry whispered again, as we hit the road.

“WHY THE HELL ARE YOU WHISPERING?” I squalled at him, as we raced on the road garnering much attention.

“BLOODY HELL, HARRY! I DON’T WANT THOSE RUFFIANS TO KNOW WHERE WE’RE HEADED!” Larry lashed out at me.

“I’M SORRY!” I shouted back my apology.

“I DON’T THINK WE NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THEM KNOWING WHERE WE’RE HEADED!” Henry pitched in and his tone much sober.

“WHY?” I cried.

‘’COZ THEY’RE ALREADY BEHIND US!” Henry replied.

“WHAT THE HELL?!” Larry exclaimed, looking back at those five meat balls from Arabia.

I turned back to look too and lost my sense altogether. Those Arabs were running like horses fitted with jet engines instead of arseholes.

“WHAT DO WE DO?” I cried helplessly.

“WE KEEP RUNNING!!!” Larry cried harder.

My friends and I kept running as fast as we could towards the Elm Park underground station but those Arabs were steadily gaining on us. I knew from the bottom of my heart that we were gutted but I didn’t dare to declare my opinion loudly any longer. We had already been shouting all the way long.

My only hope was that the police would intervene soon and somehow save us from those Arabs but there was no sign of the police anywhere.

This day had not been our lucky day. Perhaps, I wouldn’t have reached this conclusion this fast if I had remembered the last night with the Sheikh’s daughters but I remembered nothing. I didn’t remember any of the kissing or the rolling or any other stuff. I had remembered nothing when I had gotten up and had looked at the two women sleeping on either side of me. Now, I only remembered their faces and their structure. They were indeed quite lovely.

But had it been worth all this? All this tension, fear and running scared for your lives? No man can answer that truthfully and certainly not me.

Meanwhile, as we continued running, exertion started clouding our bodies.

“I DON’T THINK I CAN HOLD UP ANY LONGER!” I cried.

“PATIENCE HARRY! WE’RE ALMOST THERE!” Larry reassured, holding my hand tighter.

The Arabs were still hot on our heels and we kept lunging with everything that we got. At last, when we’re about five hundred yards from the station, Henry reported that the Arabs were missing.

“REALLY?” I asked, turning behind to look. Indeed, there was no sign of them anywhere. I was temporarily relieved and unconsciously, I braked, not realising Larry was still holding my hand and that he was racing. This unholy union resulted in jeopardy with the three of us kissing the road all over.

We picked each other up and moved to the pavement, licking our bruises.

“The Arabs are gone,” I said, panting.

Larry looked around, scoping for those guys. When he was satisfied, he bent over and relaxed.

“How did we lose them?” Larry asked.

“Let’s not question the way of things now, let’s get going,” I said. “The sooner we reach the airport, the safer we’ll be!”

“That’s right,” Larry agreed and we began walking towards the station.

“LOOK OUT!!!”

I turned in the direction of the voice. I saw a little boy on the other side of the pavement, pointing at something.

I knew what he was pointing at before I even saw that with my eyes. It was them, Arabs. They were shouting like mad cave men and running towards us and were about a hundred yards away.

“RUN! RUN! RUN!” I yelled and pushed Larry and Henry forward. The station was still four hundred yards away.

“WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?” Henry asked and not totally focused on his running.

“I DON’T CARE! BUT IF WE KEEP TALKING LIKE THIS, I KNOW WHERE WE WOULD BE GOING!” I cried back. We sprinted down the stairs to the underground station.

I kept hoping, as we were getting that there would be a train to take us away from those goons but there wasn’t any train at the station when we made it there.

“WHAT DO WE DO NOW?” Larry shrieked, “THEY’LL GET TO US ANY MOMENT NOW!”

My heart was almost on the verge on bursting and I was simply in no state to answer Larry’s question.

This death race was certainly getting the better of me.

“THEY ARE HERE!” Larry yelled. I turned around to see those five big Arabs with death and torture all over their faces, standing only a few yards away from us.

“I see Jesus and Satan fighting over our dead bodies,” I blabbered.

“THE TRAIN’S HERE!!!” Henry yelled even louder and grabbed both of us and dragged us inside the train. As I scrambled my way inside the train to find a place by the window, I saw the Arabs charging like bulls towards us.

“CLOSE THE DOOR! CLOSE THE DOOR! CLOSE THE DOOR!” I cried, banging my fist against the window. The Arabs were yelling at us something in Arabic which made them look even more fearsome. I was still hoping that the crowd, who were still boarding the train, would somehow slow the Arabs from getting inside but there was no such hopes for my hope as these Arabs barged their way through the crowd to the train, as easily as elephants making way through a litter of kittens.

Whoever was in their way got mercilessly punished.

Out of the five, the biggest and the meanest looking Arab almost made it to our coach, when the doors closed and the train started moving.

I let out the biggest sigh of relief, I had ever let out in my life and collapsed in my seat.

“Chaps! To tell you the truth,” Henry said, “My booze’s effect is worn out. That was one hell of a run!”

I had no energy left to actively engage in a conversation so I just hung my head and rested for a while.

After about five minutes, Larry woke me from my nap.

“Hey, we got to come up with a plan,” Larry said.

I just looked at him stupidly.

“Come on, Harry,” Larry urged. “Do you have any plans as how to get us to the airport?”

For a moment, I just processed what he had said and then I replied, “I have no idea!”

“Same here. The Sheikh by now would have got the whole London looking for us,” Larry said.

Then it was Henry’s turn to be brilliant again.

“We’ll get off at Westminster and take a cab to the airport,” Henry said.

Larry and I chewed on that thought for a while. It seemed to be a reasonably good plan. It was simple and clean. I liked the plan but I had a few pressing questions to ask first however, Henry beat me to it.

‘Do you have the passports, tickets and visas?’ Henry asked me and I was happy that he was sober again.

I felt my pant pockets and I nodded yes. Then he turned to Larry and asked, “What about money, Larry? How much do you have?’

“I’ve got about five grand with me now,” Larry replied.

“Alright,” Henry said, with a perplexed look on his face, “There are gonna be dogs all over you at the airport, bud. Keep your bank statements ready to prove to them that it’s your money and impress on them that we’re going on a holiday. Make it sound like some enlightenment journey or some self-discovery shit as to the reason why we aren’t carrying of our belongings with us.”

When Harry was done talking, Larry and I were left speechless. Henry when sober was clearly a man who can even get you through hell. It was a pity, he had this drinking problem.

“So, guys, you okay with the plan?” Henry asked.

Larry and I nodded our heads vigorously. “Let’s rock and roll,” Henry said and held out both his hands for high-fives.

Larry and I returned the high-fives and retired to our own thoughts. I escaped to an earlier point in time, when I was in the village school. I was the class jester. The bullies had officially bestowed that title on me since, how to put this into words, I was actually pretty funny. Not that I had to come up with something to perform and make those people laugh, according to those bullies I had to do nothing, absolutely nothing to make them laugh. The very sight of me sent them into uncontrollable bouts of hysterical laughter. I had no idea at that time as to what made these bullies go mad with laughter, however looking now back I get a faint idea.

As a young boy of eight, I had had no recognizable physique, one might as well as had called me walking chopsticks and not been wrong. My head was smaller than it should’ve been in comparison to my lanky body. My head which should have been the size of a rugby ball to compliment my body and be somewhat aesthetically pleasing, was in fact the size of a tennis ball. I was a loner and I had nowhere to go. When pretty much everyone around you are eight years old, there are only two groups into which they can be divided. Bullies and victims. You see eight year old children aren’t sophisticated to belong to any other groups that later they do get absorbed into as they hit their teens.

So there were no queers, no suicidal losers, no jocks, no music mad (bad) bands, no nerds, no fashion conscious girls, no cock upped artists and no normal people. So I didn’t have the luxury of forming my group of ‘Freaks from the Edge of the Galaxy’. To add to my misery, I didn’t find a place even among the victims, who ostracized me upon looking like a freaky alien, with a tennis ball for a head.

Why was I suddenly remembering all this? Especially when I was running for my life! But, this showed the general nature of life itself. Life is random. Life is unpredictable. One moment you’re having the time of your life and the very next moment, you find that your arse is on fire. One moment you’re happily drifting away to nothingness and the very next moment you find yourself facing Death and Destruction, stalking you like paparazzi stalking scantily clad celebrities for you-know-what. The list of examples keep flowing like the Nigeria falls, never ending and ever pristine. We ourselves are random. Our dreams are random, our choices are random, our farts are super random and our bowel movements are bloody random unless you’re trained but I ain’t. You get the point. Life is random and there isn’t much wisdom in trying to understand our every action and thought ‘coz it’s our nature. To be random. To be or not be, we got no choice but be random. So let’s just go with the flow.

Soon, we reached Westminster and I took a look at Henry. He was still sober. I felt my heart glow with hope.

“Thank you, Jesus!” I said, grateful that Henry hadn’t thought about getting a drink so far.

It got Larry’s and Henry’s attention.

“What?” Both of them chorused together.

“Nothing!” I chirped. “Westminster’s here!”

“Yeah!” Larry said. “Let’s get going!”

We got onto the station and proceeded towards the stairs. Every step we took, we felt a tad stronger and less scared. When we reached the road, the three of us started looking around for taxis and were quite surprised to find none. I got a tinge of ominous feeling at this but kept looking hopefully.

“We got to find a taxi fast,” Larry said. “If I am right about the Sheikh, he would have got men swooping for us at every station by now.”

“Let’s not drown ourselves in your pessimism yet, Larry,” Henry said.

Oh boy! Thank the Lord indeed for Henry. Man, can anyone speak as comforting and as wise as him when he’s sober?!

I smiled as I thought this to myself, when my feelings of ominousness went through the roof. To a hundred yards on my right, I saw six bearded hunks in suits that were on the verge of bursting, walking fasts towards us.

“We got to go, guys!” I warned, nudging my friends. “We’ve got company!”

“OH MY GOD! THE ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST’S HERE, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, THIS AIN’T HAPPENING!” Larry cried, going into a state of a yet undefined psychosis triggered by bearded circumcised Muslims in suits.

“Alright! Keep it cool! Walk across the road as calmly as possible and once we get away from their line of sight, we’ll dash!” Henry said. “Are we clear?”

Larry and I nodded our heads and started walking across the road with Henry, trying to look as calm as possible. Well, I wasn’t exactly walking. I was moving more like a patient with Parkinson’s or a drunk monkey with the idea that his tail is actually another leg, to be actively engaged in the process of walking. Beads of salty perspiration fell from my forehead and some made it into my eyes, blinding me in the process. My adrenal glands were overworking their arses off in pumping me full of adrenaline. Too much of anything ain’t good. I certainly agree with that one. Anyways, I never clearly understood how these hormones helped me. They were supposed to be prepping my body to face any dangerous situation. Fight or flight, right? And here I was, my limbs dangling without life, my heart racing to burst itself into a thousand pieces and my bowels suddenly deciding on an emergency delivery.

“Be cool,” Henry reminded me.

Are you serious?

Some men do have nerves of steel. Henry seemed to be one of the men with them but I knew for sure, that I ain’t got any nerves at all. He got no right to tell me to be cool.

While I was walking like a newborn gazelle with no hind legs, Larry was fidgeting all over beside me, literally hanging onto Henry’s shirt like an estranged long lost lover.

“Now? Now? What about now?” Larry kept pestering Henry.

“I’ll tell you when to RUN!!!” Henry hissed at him.

“Alright!” Larry said. “How about now?”

Henry just growled in return.

We somehow managed to cross the road and Henry suddenly cried, “GET SET GO!”

“What?” I mumbled, confused momentarily as I saw Henry dart away from us.

“LET’S GO!” Larry tugged at my arm and tried to drag me along. He tugged at me as I stood steady as the Big Ben which resulted in him slipping like Godzilla over a modestly big heap of fresh banana peels.

“HARRY! YOU BLOODY IDIOT!” Larry cried, smarting.

There, it was all he needed to say to jumpstart me into action. Pretty soon, I was running alongside him, nearly out of breath and energy. This whole day was turning into the worst nightmare, I could ever imagine.

“COME ON! CATCH UP!” Henry yelled at us, fifty yards away from us. I looked back and saw the beefy men not even twenty yards from catching us.

I knew in that instant that I wouldn’t have been a very good early cave man. Early men never stopped running. They ran after juicy animals and away from ferocious predators. They ran after their disobedient naughty children and away from their older jealous wives, over trying to score with younger ripe women wearing crocodile hide lingerie. Running had always been part of their culture, too bad it hadn’t passed over to the modern man. The modern man runs albeit he ain’t literally running anymore. He usually prefers to run over other people than just run.

Coming back to our little situation, I was still running at least I thought I was, but was in fact, I was moving like a tortoise with no limbs. Larry’s hand slipped out of my own sweaty arm and he went ahead without me and by the time, he had realized it was too late. I was moving my legs but wasn’t moving an inch along with the facial expression of a dying cancer patient who’s just been told he also has AIDS along with syphilis and that his last dying wish of making love to his wife one last time can never be fulfilled.

The Arabs jumped onto me as they do in American football and I was crushed under their weight. I could hardly breathe and was about to get right with God just before I died when I heard shots being fired. My heart no longer had the energy to pound any harder than it already was and I was no more surprised than I already was, what I am trying to say is, that I was too physically exhausted to even feel anything at all. I was like a ghost just observing the way of things, neither showing any emotion nor any reaction. Then suddenly, the crushing weight above me started disappearing rapidly and I could breathe again. I took in deep fresh breaths as I was helped to my feet. I opened my eyes and saw that it was Larry and Henry.

“You killed them?!” I croaked, still too physically exhausted to show any emotion although I wanted to, with a shrill voice.

“No!” Larry replied, dragging me.

“Then?!” I asked, half cursing Larry for making it necessary for me to ask more questions to know what really happened, couldn’t he see that I had just been almost crushed to my death and just be generous with his words about what the hell had just happened!

“Henry took them out with rubber bullets, we’ve got to move fast! The police will be here soon!”

I had forgotten all about it. Just all Sikhs carry daggers with them as their way of telling others, “Don’t you dare to f**k with me!” Henry too carried a handgun loaded with rubber bullets all the time.

Henry was a comics book junkie. He had whole cardboard boxes stacked with comics, mostly about superheroes. He was in particular, a Batman fan. He had watched Nolan’s The Dark Knight at least a million times and often killed us by applying those movie dialogues in everyday life. For example, when a LGBT march had been announced in our locality, Henry rampaged the whole march shouting anti-gay slogans and afterwards when he was interviewed by a local news channel as to why he had done it and what he thought about the LGBT movement, he replied, “You either die a man or you live long enough to see yourself become a faggot!”

Sometimes, he used to dress up like James Bond for ComicCon and used a pickup line every time there, saying “I am all about banging! Banging bad guys and hot babes, that’s who I am!”

Another one of his bad pickup lines was, “Ladies, have you ever seen a gun that never needs to reload? I can show you one!”

No wonder, he never got lucky with the woman in that Wonder Woman costume or the girls in the CatWoman and Spider-Girl outfits. All he ended up was with a red cheek and an ice pack against it.

Every single time.

“Are you okay?” Henry asked, as the two jogged dragging me like a lifeless doll.

“I’m okay!” I croaked and I heard a crackling sound in my chest. It momentarily froze me thinking of the worst possibilities.

Did my ribs stab my lungs or did my lungs just collapse?

Whatever it was, I started taking smaller breaths out of fear.

“Now, we are running along St James’s Park!” Larry said.

“Can’t we take a taxi from here?” I croaked again.

“No!” Henry said sharply. “Let’s take one from the Piccadilly road!”

With all my strength, I wanted to ask him why but decided against it. Frankly, I was more afraid of dying of a collapsed lung than dying at the hands of those beefy Arabs.

Soon, we came along Buckingham’s Palace. I saw Henry reach out into his pocket and take a sip from his gin bottle. I gulped so hard at that sight that for a moment I thought I had swallowed my own tongue.

“GOD SAVE THE MERRY QUEEN!!!” Henry shouted with glee written all over his face.

Larry shushed him, as we broke into a trot. I was still being dragged though.

“Don’t you shush me, Larry!” Henry retorted. “Let’s go in and wish the Queen good health!”

Saying so, Henry started walking towards the Palace Gates, letting go of me. I was abandoned by Larry too and I fell to the ground with a dull thud like a paralytic. Larry hugged Henry from behind and brought him back. This however caught the attention of a nearby police officer. He came strutting to us and started questioning.

“Do we have a problem, gentlemen?” he asked as calmly as possible.

“No, sir, we don’t!” Larry replied, in a nervous tone.

“Yes, we do, sir!” Henry said. “I want to wish the Queen good health in person but my companion isn’t letting me to do so!”

The police officer looked surprised and a little irritated. He looked at Larry and asked, “Are we having a drunk here, sir?”

Larry furiously nodded his head, in the affirmative.

The police officer then gave a slight nod and looked at Henry and said, “I am sorry but the Queen seems to be out of town right now so you can’t wish her today. Perhaps another day, sir.”

Henry looked rather crestfallen but didn’t protest and tried to take another sip from his gin bottle which the police officer promptly prevented by snatching it from him.

“It’s a very bad idea, sir.” the police officer said, with a smile.

At that moment, we heard someone bawling behind us. I turned back to see three of those Arabs that Henry had knocked out earlier, about a hundred yards away.

Larry grabbed my arm and that of Henry’s and started dashing, wasting no time.

The police officer, who was genuinely surprised, spent some time turning his head to the right and left, having not even a grain of an idea about what was happening right there. Then he suddenly started behaving like the police guy from Make way for Noddy! shouting “Stop in the name of the law!”

This suddenly prompted Henry to turn around and run back towards the police officer.

“IT’S IN THE NAME OF THE QUEEN, YOU MORON!” Henry yelled as he landed a left cross across the police officer’s cheek and took the gin bottle from his hands and started running back to us.

The Arabs’ bawls were growing louder as they drew nearer us.

“YOU SON OF A WACKO GECKO!” Larry reprimanded. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“Nobody takes my g