Work abroad: Pierre and his KTV gigolo job in Taipei V

Just a reminder this is the fifth installation of the story of Pierre's work as a gigolo in Taipei. Best to go back and read all in the Pierre and his KTV gigolo job series from work abroad.

After the BBQ on the roof, drunkenness and just down right stupidity meant we agreed to go to Pierre’s gilded cage for a party.
At the time we actually thought we were being clever because Pierre went ahead by half an hour or so – just to check the coast was clear. Who knows what would have happened if we had arrived at the same time? I suppose it doesn’t matter.
John took Eric on his scooter and I took Martina, Pierre’s date. Worried about being caught for drink driving i took things slowly arriving about 20 minutes after the other two. It proved to be one of the best decisions in my life as i guess it saved me the kind of stress that turns you gray. Afterwards, John decided to drive slow as well. 
Anyway, this is how they recounted the story of the first 20 minutes.
“Get the fuck off the back,” shouted John to Eric. They recognized the shirt, they were outside his apartment, and had to extremely reluctantly face the fact that the limp body being dumped in the boot of the car was Pierre’s. (John had seen this once before, when he was walking pass a dark alley, the guys flashed a concerned look at him, to which in reply he pointed two fingers at his eyes, shook his head and walked on).
Unfortunately, now he knew the person concerned and had to do something. Driving off would be the best option, and he thought for a second whether Pierre was a friend worth putting his life on the line for…Probably, not, but he couldn’t risk regretting it the next day.
John left Eric depressed and shaking and sped round to the front of the car, dropping his motorbike to prevent them driving off.
“Just do nothing but translate, word for fucking word, no ideas, no personal input. If they come for us run screaming like a bastard! Got it!” Eric didn’t know whether he was more scared of John or of the guys who had just bundled Pierre in the back of a car and were now coming to the front of the car to confront him and John. For once, he appeared to get the idea that it was best not to threaten to sue.
Eric was actually caught in two minds about the presence of John: if the situation was going to be got out of, he was the man, but if John hadn’t been there, Eric could have pretended he didn’t see, then later justified it on the basis of there was no point in two people getting killed. On his own he knew he would be crap, non-existent; he was not going to much use now - just hoping to pull off being John’s Chinese speaking hand puppet, and he may even fuck that up. He had always thought he was far too logical to get into a fight: he never fought, he wasn’t big; common sense taught him he was going to lose. After all, you don’t expect to go out and beat Federer at tennis when you have only played a handful of times in your backyard. He often got angry, and felt like punching people, but then logic would take over and he would walk away. Now he was just overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. And, he didn’t know how he had time to think of this because he was frozen and numb with fear; but it seemed his poor attention-span applied to feeling shit scared as well: his mind wandered off until it couldn’t ignore the shaking anymore, then went back to blind panic.
“Right. In you’re best non-arrogant, condescending, listen to me I went to Harvard tone tell them we just want them to leave the guy. We didn’t see anything…But…We ain’t going without him.” For once in his life Eric was sure he could do non-combative, modest, and un-argumentative.
He did as John said but it didn’t seem to be effective: the guys still went to the trunk, pushed Pierre’s body about a bit – they heard a bump and a groan – and started coming towards them with a machete and a baseball bat (Stun and slash seemed to be their operation) clearly intent on taking the two of them with their friend. 
“Hmm, it doesn’t seem this is going to be so easy after all,” said John. “Right. You know what you are supposed to do after you start running?”
Eric thought that was straight forward enough – pump air into his lungs through his nose until they burst while approaching looking back as if he were Hades leading his dead wife through the underworld back to life. “Get around the corner and call the police, then start ringing every fuckin’ buzzer on this street. Use that big mouth of yours for something good for once. I won’t be able to last out too long.”
Eric thought for a moment. “Shouldn’t I…” he said. He knew Pierre got himself into the situation, but John hadn’t and was going to get himself killed and he decided a man can’t be a weasily-coward all his life.
“No!” said John. “Is it going to help the situation if you hang around?”
Things changed again. John and Eric had already backed down the street thirty yards so the guys had turned back and were picking up the bike. John knew he was going to have to provoke them, he looked around for some weapons…Bloody typical, he thought, in this city there is always a skip by the roadside, building sites and scaffolding with materials that would make Mr.T orgasm, now…
“Gan ne ma (Fuck your mother).” He shouted as loud as he could and produced a middle finger. An East/West combo insult couldn’t fail. As expected the guys dropped the scooter, and started to move in his direction. No amount of profession pride could suppress a Taiwanese gangster’s anger at being told to go and fuck his mother. John was starting to feel a little sorry for himself, that life was shit no matter where he lived, and he was going to go out for someone else’s sins.
At this point Martina and I arrived.
I didn’t initially see Pierre, and i had never been in this situation before. All i saw was the two guys with the weapons, but it is funny how fast your worst fears allow you to clue in. 
“Where is Pierre?” I shouted to Martina.
Martina quickly found Pierre and went running in the direction of the guys with the weapons. I followed until i realized she wasn’t going to stop running and i was getting in swinging distance. John changed from backing up to running in their direction to help her out.
Martina stood in front of them. “Na ma, le hai,” she said, and then kept repeating it while dipping her head and being reverential. It seemed completely weird to compliment the guys but i didn’t have any better ideas.
“You the winner. You beat him,” she said. “Please. Let him go. He stupid foreigner. He is very scared now. You teach him. Please let him go.”
It was then a weird couple of minutes as Martina continued sucking up to them and we all stood in our various positions. Two minutes ago my hands had been outstretched trying to grab her and pull her back. John had been sprinting with a motorcycle helmet in his hand. And Eric was running away. Now, my hands had relaxed at my side, John was in half hulk mode, and Eric was slowly edging his way back towards us. Stress levels were dissipating.
Suddenly, the tension then ratcheted up again as the two guys walked back to the boot of the car. They then rather un-lovingly positioned Pierre on the boot entrance lip and ceremoniously tipped his balance so he fell to the ground, spinning and bouncing off the bumper below. While John moved his scooter the window screen was lit by a broad arrogant, menacing smile; as they drove off they shouted ‘bye bye’, in that patronizing way that says you boys are losers.
Pierre was unconscious and and some pools of blood were getting bigger on the floor. I immediately went for the smaller pool whose source was his forehead. I took off my outer t-shirt and held it on his head.
The biggest pool was coming from under his left arm. 
“Hold the cut together, man. Apply pressure to stop the bleeding,” said Eric to John.
“I know. I was in the army knob head. Why me?” questioned John understandably.
“One of us has to call an ambulance. How is your Chinese?” replied Eric.
John grunted and quickly put one hand on either side of the wound and pushed it together.
About 30 seconds passed and Eric was still standing there.
“Why the fuck aren’t you calling?” I shouted.
Eric hesitated again before blurting out. “You know me. My pre-pay card is out and I didn’t have enough money…”
“You twat, earn some fuckin’ money,” shouted John. “Anyway, use my phone.”
There was another moments hesitation before Eric worked out it was best for John not to let go - John was holding together Pierre’s left forearm which had been sliced to the bone. And, it wouldn’t just be the effect on Pierre’s blood volume if he took his hands off, but John knew a game of now you see it, now you don’t with the white bone below was likely to cause him to throw up.
Eric reached into John’s pocket, took his phone and started dialing.
“What a fucking dick, eh!” said John.
“Shut up – maybe, he can hear,” I said. John thought this was bullshit, but given the gravity of the situation decided not to take a chance. He had visited casualty plenty of times on the early hours of a Sunday morning for his own, or friends’ broken noses, cracked ribs or concussion, but they had always managed to wake up from the boots in the head; this he knew was a level above.
“Martina, that was amazing,” i said. “That took balls.”
“I am from the Ukraine,” she replied.
“But i mean the whole reverse psychology shit to calm them down. In a movie but - ” I said.
“Of course,” said John. “We had courses in that in the army. Hostage situation. Talking someone down and all that stuff. It works. Very useful.”
“So,” I said. “You were standing with a motorcycle helmet?”
“There you go asshole,” he replied. “If i could do that crap i might have made it to the special forces.”
He continued. “Besides, do you think they would have allowed me within 2 yards of them?”
For the next 15 minutes, we kneeled and sat on our asses on the road silently, hands occupied holding wounds together – Me on his head, John on the left arm, Martina on the right arm, and Eric on his ribs. Selfish motives for his survival went through our heads along with the noble: neither of us had had anyone die on them before and we had no interest in wrestling with the question, ‘Did we do enough?’
Fifteen minutes later, the ambulance arrived. Unfortunately, the officer thought he could speak English.
“Uh, what…Uh…matter?” he said.
“Ta di shou be bei kan le. Ta liou hen dwo xie,” (His arms are cut. He has lost a lot of blood.) Eric informed the medical officer from the ambulance.
“You say…um...arm. cut…yes…Where?” he replied taking an age to finish his sentence.
Eric repeated it and started to explain about the head and ribs as well.
“Stop. Uh. Slowly,” said the guy. “So…Uh…Head? Rib? Did i say it right?”
For once we were all in agreement with Eric and weren’t prepared to be polite.
“Stop practicing your fucking English,” we shouted.
Offended, he walked off leaving his colleague, who didn’t mind speaking Chinese with a foreigner, to take over.
At the hospital.
“What happened to him?” asked the receptionist in the hospital.
“He was beaten up; hit by a meat cleaver,” replied Eric.
“Hmm, that is nothing. See that man crying there, his daughter jumped from the roof - Se diao le (dead).”
“What did the old bird say?” asked John.
Eric stood pondering the unbelievable level of insensitivity. Almost admiring it. Normally he would have already taken the bait but tonight he was spent. “You don’t want to know,” he replied.
Pierre was taken into emergency and we had no choice but to hang around at the reception desk, accompanying each other for finger biting and cigarette breaks, before checking with the insensitive receptionist if their was any news from the emergency room. She had more important things to talk about.
“Your friend is American,” she asked.
“French,” answered Eric, but her attention had been taken : “Look at that !” she shouted. A suited businessman was being wheeled into emergency on a bed wearing an oxygen mask. “He tried to commit suicide, but failed! Mei you yong (No use). That man’s daughter succeeded…3^rd attempt though, I had seen her before today.”
“Maybe, this guy will be back soon. Have you seen him before?”
“No!”
“Next time is number 2. That is quicker than her.” I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation.
“That is right.” She turned in the businessman’s direction, “Die next time and you won’t be such a failure.”
Then flitting back to me: “You are American?”
“No,” I replied. “But he is.” I pointed to Eric so she turned her attention to him.
“I have been to America. Denver! My friend lives there, opened a Chinese restaurant,” she said.
“Never been,” replied Eric. “Denver is a nasty place. I am from New York which means i find you culturally easier to understand. What is happening with my friend? Uh, i mean the person we brought in.”
Receptionist: “Worry is a waste of time! If they can save him they will. Just wait and see.”
Eric was traumatized, and having seen enough blood for one evening he sat down instead of thrusting the pen, he still had in his hand from filling out the forms, in her eye. The world seemed a cruel place.
Half an hour later, and her shift had finished: “Tell your friend to be more careful - if he survives…”
The lady who replaced her was compassionate, sensitive and understanding!
About two hours later, he woke from his coma, and we were able to go home to sleep. He had twenty stitches in his head; several of his ribs were cracked, his face was a swollen mess, and the most permanent damage was to his left arm. The nerves had been severed meaning it could take months or years or never to recover full feelings.
We went home assuming it was the end of the story of Pierre's gigolo job. Still it had one more episode…

Work abroad: Pierre and his KTV gigolo job in Taipei III

Just a reminder this is the third installment of the story of Pierre's work as a gigolo in Taipei. Best to go back and read all in the Pierre and his KTV gigolo job series from work abroad.

After his one stab at paid sex, Pierre had sworn himself off preferring to just drink with the women. Six months later Pierre had found his feet and in doing so rediscovered his sense of the melodramatic, and that melodrama expressed itself in clients with overlapping schedules. He was sure that if a client saw him with another it would be disastrous. His gigolo colleagues told him that it is generally not a problem, but he replied with: “Yeah, right, what I am going to say to her, ‘Sorry, I was fleetingly making someone else’s life less lonely. Now it your turn.”  Still, his gigolo colleagues knew there was no need for embarrassment, but were not interested in arguing (Taiwanese are very good at that) and decided it was best to just play along.
That evening:
He made an excuse to a Miss Chen to approach the bar and talk to his colleagues.
“Has Miss Hu arrived?” asked Pierre.
“No,” said his colleague.
Pierre did his phew, the world isn’t going to end face and waited for someone to be interested.
Nobody was.
Pierre continued: “I don’t know what time Miss Chen is leaving.”
“Should be no problem,” said his colleague again. But nothing was ever ‘no problem’ in the Pierre universe. He started to pull his this is deadly serious, man face, but got no joy. He then pulled it harder and harder until all the energy in his entire body was helping to radiate seriousness; but, all he got was a polite smile (Taiwanese were also very good at polite smiles).
Besides, they had seen and heard it all before: at the start he had just talked about the possibility that he would get a clash of clients coming to the KTV, then he invented them and had everyone running around pretending he wasn’t there, or in the bathroom, or covering for him at a table so that he could sneak out the emergency exit. Now, he was throwing out names that made no sense to them for authenticity.
“Is Miss Chen a regular,” asked a different colleague.
Pierre raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
“Well…is she?” asked the colleague again.
“She might be,” replied Pierre.
Now his colleague was raising his eyebrows because he didn’t understand. He thought about getting to the bottom of the situation, but decided to walk off instead.
Suddenly Miss Hu arrived and it was a perfect chance to invent a problem. 
“Miss Chen, excuse me, I have a problem...I am really very sorry,” he said.
“No need to be so polite,” she replied. And she actually meant it because she didn’t much like foreigners, and was waiting for someone else.
Pierre went out the emergency exit of the KTV, clambered over the empty beer crates, slipping on a fire extinguisher buried underneath; down one flight to the office below, then took the lift back up.
He straightened his tie as he approached Miss Hu. “Sorry, I have got here. I was late tonight,” he said. Miss Hu looked baffled why he would lie - She knew he was already there with another client, and if he wasn’t popular, she wouldn’t be interested. Anyway, he had told her to be there at 10:00…Insisted in fact.
A little white lie. It wasn’t entirely accurate to say that he had decided never again to take payment for sex. He had decided never to take payment from a nice woman. A few weeks ago Miss Hu had taken a shine to him, and, at the moment, she was certainly fulfilling the above criteria.
Typical Miss Huisms:
“You know, even though I have a lot of money, I like to have normal friends. I don’t show off my money -I have 3 houses, one in the California, but I don’t it doesn’t make me arrogant.”
“I am really nice to my friends. I always forgive people when they are mean to me. But one time, I don’t like to use my power, a friend of mine doubled crossed and one phone call and they had their business closed.”
“My friend are only secretaries, but I don’t tell them that they should do better with their lives.”
“I pay for everything, and I never ask for anything, but I know they don’t respect me.”
And it went on and on…he was sure he was going to go mad. The first time he entertained her was the first time rage had been so intense he could have killed someone. Everyone, from time to time, was stuck talking to someone they didn’t like, and watched their clock desperately hoping the next sentence would be the last and you could get away. That first time, he had watched her lips and wondered how such beautiful, thick things could allow such obnoxious, arrogant drivel past. Didn’t they have a sense they were being showed up? It quickly became clear there would be no respite, so he concentrated his attention on those lips, convincing himself that when they stopped, she would stop. Unfortunately, they’re momentary stops were only pauses while she gathered together another snippet of self-absorbed reflection. Still it helped to see them unmoved for just a second, it was a moment’s relief before the torturer put the electric tongs back on his balls. Each sentence hammered into his head on the same spot. And it was so much worse because he was not just required to appear to listen to someone else but to actually listen and respond - She continually asked him what he thought and pulled him up if he wasn’t listening, but she wasn’t looking for a discussion, merely an acknowledgment of her plight: your empathy showed that you had digested what she was saying.
While he tried to keep his attention focused his teeth clasped tight, and his eyes stared forward, then he was hit by the sensation the parts of his face had got so close together they could feel the presence of the others and were about to engage each other in conversation. When she went he just stumbled around dazed, shell-shocked. He was afraid to go to sleep – Initially surprised he had not gone mad, he then decided the experience would be like when you play on an injury and get used to it, but the next day, you have done so much damage you are out for the season. He expected to wake up dribbling and babbling; or somewhere in a small African country, having undergone plastic surgery, carrying a new identity, with no knowledge of the past twenty-five years, only of unspeakable past trauma. He tried to run and hide second time she came, but she sought out the manager, who asked him to do a favor, and therefore he had no choice. It got better from then in - You will get used to hell. He knew what she was going to say, developing the ability to wake back up just when she was finishing a sentence. She was so obsessed with face that he could wrap her around his little finger: Keep telling her what a nice person she was; misunderstood, down to earth, sincere, and she would keep coming back. And, he wanted a woman who he could rip off, but had been restricted by conscience, so a candidate like this, that he disliked so intensely, wasn’t going to appear too often. He knew he shouldn’t miss hopping on the broom stick.
The next evening we were all out together.
“Have you sorted anything out yet - what you want to do?” I asked.
The fact that it had been eight months now since Pierre entered the KTV club, wasn’t lost on his friends either. He was still talking about how: he was going to change the world, do something different, not rely on his status as a foreigner to earn money, and now the period in which we were too impressed to say anything was over.
“I have been working 4 nights a week. It was not as easy as I expected you know,” he replied.
His expression was humble, introspective, and everyone wanted to feel sorry for him, but nobody could really take it seriously: you don’t believe the gambler who says he has quit, you don’t believe Pierre will start approaching life by realistically assessing his strengths and weaknesses.
Sometime during his upbringing his parents stopped trying to tether his self-belief to reality - Presumably, as he is still alive today, it was sometime after teaching him to cross the road, but the indications suggest not long.
He continued: “Having to drink so much everyday and deal with the people, I don’t think you boys could handle it.”
Ah, back to normal, we thought.
“What about that cash? You must have a stack saved up.”
“I have some, but meeting business contacts is not cheap here. You have to keep up appearances.”
We didn’t believe the excuse. We also disputed he was working at the club four nights a week --The regularity with which we saw him meant there would have to eight or nine days in a week.
Anyway, we knew he was spending the money. You can pretend this is independent cinema and invent the killer who likes to prune roses or work with disabled children when he is not lopping and dismembering, but in the real world, most of these guys follow the stereotype. Pierre and his colleagues spent fortunes on clothes, cars, drinking, and cards in illegal gambling houses. It was stuff right out of the movies for Pierre – dumping one or two thousand US dollars on a bet and losing it all. At times, we wanted to feel sorry for the naïve boy who we were sure was going to regret it bitterly later, but there was no need to feel sorry for him: Pierre only remembered the experience.
Still, even the most optimistic guy can have a few regrets. The Miss Hu situation would come to be one.