Secret Skin Page 11

  Sat next to the creek eating a falafel sandwich I cursed myself for succumbing to my fear and failing to get any words at all, honest or otherwise. The cursing didn’t work though. The cool of my air conditioned car called to me from the other side of the creek, tempting me to go home, to give it up before the night even began, to find an easy press release to top and tail.

  I’d spent the last hour traipsing through the lanes of Deira and getting exactly nowhere. I had tried to strike up a conversation with three Filipino prostitutes in a street café. When they realized I wasn’t a potential customer they shouted and waved their handbags, napkins and cutlery at me. I then tried to talk to a john in relaxed negotiations with a prostitute on the main street while families and policemen walked on by. He didn’t have a handbag but the result was much the same. I then managed to strike up a conversation with a wonderfully garish woman who wore a gold blouse, purple leggings and excessive amounts of costume jewellery. All too happy to talk to me, only my lack of Latvian prevented us from getting any further than the prices for a performance.

  Plenty of color, I thought, but no substance, nothing juicy. I ordered another sandwich and thirstily gulped back bottles of water while watching the sun set behind the minarets and malls on the other side of the creek. I relaxed in the unconscious certainty that I would soon give in to temptation and go home.

  A pedestrian subway caught my attention. In Britain they were usually filled with the kind of people you would brave night time traffic to avoid. Here they were well lit and filled with pedestrians who stubbornly refused to urinate in the corners.

  Where the subway steps came out on the other side of the road I noticed three young men just hanging around. I didn’t think anything of it until they began to say quiet short phrases to men who held their eye too long.

  I crossed through the subway and stood at the top of the steps, glancing at my watch occasionally as if waiting to meet someone. The young men thrust their coquettish hips at passersby, sifting for low carat gold. One potential punter doubled back and asked the time of the most foppish of the three. They negotiated quietly, looked furtively around, and together walked away down a narrow side street.

  Male prostitutes out in the open. That wasn’t on Yasmin’s list.

  I followed a second young man as he escorted a middle aged office worker in a grey suit around the same corner to a nearby hotel.

  I walked back and caught the eye of the last young man. I wanted to do this on my own terms this time.

  ‘How much?’ I said.

  ‘What you want?’

  ‘Let me talk to you over some food and I can tell you what I need. I will pay you for your time. How much for half an hour?’

  ‘One hundred,’ he said hopefully.

  ‘Fine, show me where you would like to eat,’ I said and gestured for him to lead on.

  ***

  ‘I sell hubs,’ he said, in broken English.

  I looked where he was pointing. An auto-spares shop.

  ‘Ah, hub caps. Pays the rent huh?’

  ‘Yes. But I can’t pay for…’ his English failed him ‘…a good place. My place not good.’

  ‘How long you been here now?’

  He looked at me non-plussed.

  ‘How long in Dubai?’ I shrugged, ‘Months, years?’

  ‘Oh, months and years, yes. Two and one.’

  ‘Do you like it?’ He smiled at me as if I was asking a trick question. ‘Do you like Dubai?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘The place where I live there are seventeen men.’

  ‘In the building?’

  ‘In room. Stinking Muslims. They work at fish market. They stink. Fish, always fish. In this heat. Blech!’ He said, demonstrating a dry retch.

  ‘Do you like them?’

  ‘No. They do bad things.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘To me,’ he said looking away from me, ‘They do bad to me.’

  A beat of awkward silence. ‘You want another tea?’ I asked him.

  ‘Coca Cola.’

  I waved the waiter over and ordered more drinks.

  Another innocuous hole in the wall cantina, the dirty grey of pollution beneath our feet, red and white plastic surfaces on the tables, cracked and broken like my new friend’s English.

  ‘We go to your place,’ he demanded.

  ‘Ah, no. I live miles away.’ I said making overly dramatic hand gestures. ‘Abu Dhabi,’ I lied.

  He looked at me despondently and put his glasses on, which only emphasized his awkward youthfulness. Like most young men there he had a smattering of facial fuzz, a baby beard.

  His sickly features seemed Caucasian but with a hint of something else. I couldn’t place it.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Uzbekistan,’ he brightened. ‘Do you know it?’

  ‘I know of it, never been there. Do you prefer it there to here?’

  ‘Yes, it is beautiful,’ he chirped.

  ‘So why are you here?’

  ‘To work,’ he said looking at the shop. ‘My boss,’ he pointed again, ‘I owe him money, yes?’ He got up quickly, looking flustered. ‘We go now. We go now in your car?’

  I didn’t get up, so he sat back down.

  ‘Where would we go?’ I said.

  ‘Maktoum Hospital. The car park next to it is very private.’ He smiled up at me and put his hand on my knee. I put it back on his.

  ‘No, let’s just talk. You’re being paid for your time.’

  Again that hurt, confused look. The same as the young girl when I had asked her for dialogue, as if it was part of the act. Some strange kinky desire that needed to be fulfilled. I wondered if they thought that I could climax through conversation. Perhaps some men did.

  ‘I’m a journalist,’ I said, ‘I just want to talk.’ He wouldn’t catch my eye. I grabbed his chin and pulled it up so that his eyes came level with mine. ‘I’m not interested in sex with you,’ I said. He looked blankly back at me hearing my words but not understanding. He was exasperating and pathetically demure. ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes?’ he said smiling nervously. I nodded confirmation. He seemed relieved. Conversation wasn’t part of the act. I think he got it now, and so did I, along with the customers at the tables next to us. Surprisingly they didn’t seem too bothered.

  He relaxed at this point, opened his mouth and then wouldn’t shut up.

  ‘You want to go to Uzbekistan right? It’s beautiful. It’s cheap. Easy to get visa. I get visa for you no problem. Set up business, marry beautiful Uzbeki girl. I know beautiful Uzbeki girl. You want to meet her? Yes, you meet her. I bring her to your place in Abu Dhabi. You meet her, you marry her, if you like. We get you visa, no problem. Uzbekistan good for western man. Good people, red carpet, you know? Make lot of money, you want to make lot of money? Of course, of course. I want to make lot of money too but I work in hub shop. Meet men at night, live with stinking fish men. No money. Listen, you have card? You have card? Give me business card, I call you. I bring Uzbeki girl for you to meet, you give me card? You have card?’

  He said all this with a mixture of hope and a strong desire to become more than he was. He was assertive, but he also flinched whenever he finished a sentence, as if he expected to be hit.

  Someone doesn’t treat this boy right I thought.

  ‘How old are you?’

  He counted off the numbers in his head, eyes turned up. ‘Nineteen. How old you?’

  I tried to ignore birthdays if I could. I hedged. ‘Old enough to know better, young enough to do it anyway.’

  ‘Huh?’ he said.

  I distracted him by giving him a business card from my wallet. On it was the fake name Scott Walker, a bohemian crooner from the sixties. It also had a web address that led to a holding page, an unused email address, and a mobile number that would ring when dialed. No one would answer and you could even leave a message. Each year I just let the number die and picked
up another mobile sim-card for exactly the same purpose, a useful tool when pretending to be someone else.

  A smile erupted on his face. He thought he had made a new friend, or possibly found a new mark for some Uzbeki wife scam he wanted to pull.

  ‘Write your name and number here,’ I said, better to have it than not.

  I checked my watch while he did this and counted out some money.

  ‘Listen, I’ve got to go, there’s enough here for our time, the drinks, and a little extra for you to get some food okay? I really have to go, I have to get back to Abu Dhabi before ten,’ I said.

  I stood up to leave. ‘Okay Scott, I see you soon, eh?’

  I looked at what he had written. ‘Of course Armin. Good bye for now.’ I smiled and walked away. I felt like a heel. As a man it was easy to forget with the women that what happened to them could easily happen to you too. The fantasy, the desire, and the hard on in your pants clouded your judgment.

  There were so many small moments in life where our futures hung on a yes or no answer. Whole lives could be defined by what we decided to do in any given moment. Sometimes we had a choice, and sometimes we didn’t.

  Talking to Armin, I realized that if I hadn’t said a distinct no all those years ago I could easily have lived a life just like his.

  ***

  ‘What no are you talking about?’ Newman said, more relaxed now. His entire body had slurred into the seat as he worked his way through the bottle.

  ‘When I was a teenager, about thirteen I think, I was playing arcade games with my friends in the back end of a rock club in my home town. I was never any good at them but everyone played them on Saturday mornings before heading into the city, so of course I did to.

  ‘One Saturday there was about six of us on the arcade machines and one other guy on the fruit machines. An adult. My friends went off to play pool and I carried on with the game I was playing. The guy came over to me when I’d finished and said, “I have a business proposition for you, you interested?”

  ‘I was skint and we were always looking for scams and schemes to raise money, so naturally I said, “Yes.”’

  ‘”Let’s walk a while,”’ he said.

  ‘I went outside with him to the street. We walked a few yards but I didn’t want to stray too far from my friends. He could sense this. He turned to me and said, “I’ll pay you ten pounds if you’ll wank yourself off in front of me.” I seriously considered it. Ten whole pounds. That was twice my weekly pocket money. That would be pool, fruit machines and bags of chips for the whole day, for something I did regularly on my own and for free.

  ‘”Come on,” he said, “My car is just around the corner, ten minutes for ten pounds.”

  ‘I finally realized what he was asking. I was horrified, angry, but more than anything, ashamed. I thought his approach said something dreadful about me. I didn’t know how to react. We didn’t tell grownups to fuck off at that age. Not yet. I just said “No thank you,” as politely as possible and walked away from him and back into the club. I didn’t tell anyone, not my friends, not my family. It filled me with dread—what this man wanted from me—what he might have done to me if I’d willingly gone with him. If I’d said yes to the money Martin, what else could he have persuaded me to do?’

  ‘So what are you worried about? You said no.’

  ‘I should have told him to fuck off, rounded up my friends and beaten the living crap out of him.’

  Martin considered this for a moment. ‘Sounds to me like you had a lucky escape.’

  ‘Yes, but others didn’t,’ I said. ‘Not everyone escapes.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked warily.

  ‘A few years later I was doing a story on the world cup….’

  ‘I never knew you did sports.’

  ‘I don’t. It was a story about how all the pimps and small time gangsters brought in prostitutes from around the country to service the supporters. It didn’t really go anywhere as a story, but I was out with one of the local social workers one night. She was showing me where prostitutes hung out and we stopped in a bus station. There weren’t any women there but she told me about the cottaging that went on in the toilets.

  ‘Now adults doing things to other consenting adults doesn’t bother me in the slightest but as she was talking, I recognized his face.

  ‘He was fatter, older, and with him were two black haired little boys. He walked them into the toilet and then they didn’t come out. We stood around for twenty minutes and we didn’t see anyone. I was paralyzed Martin. I couldn’t do a fucking thing. I didn’t tell the social worker about him going in there and I didn’t kick his arse and rescue those boys. I just froze.’

  ‘What was it,’ Martin said, wide awake, ‘were you scared?’

  ‘No. I was just so ashamed, I felt like that foolish, helpless kid again. The shame of it made me hesitate and then I just tried to forget about it.’

  ‘But he should have been ashamed not you.’

  ‘I know that Martin, but those two little boys were probably sucking and fucking grown men in the stalls while I stood around flirting with miss fancy pants the social worker. It was the act of a coward. ‘

  ‘Ah, the penny drops. Maybe that’s why you look like you’re about to go all psycho on me. Maybe this isn’t the right piece for you? A bit close to home perhaps?’

  A bit close to home? I wanted to tell Martin that there were things at home I hadn’t been able to say no to. But there are some secrets you just can’t share.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, pushing down the painful memories, ‘but it’s probably a bit late for that, we’re already in hospital because someone tried to kill us.’

  ‘So who would try to kill us? Or more specifically, you?’

  ‘That’s the problem, I’m not sure.’

  ‘C’mon. Tell me everything,’ he said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  After leaving Armin the rent boy I considered home once more. I had been walking all day and my sweat sodden clothes had only just begun to dry with the drop in heat. Still hotter than a European heat wave it wouldn’t be long before the night time humidity kicked in and made everything damp again.

  I kicked my heels up at another sweet tea café on the corner of a pedestrian only crossroads in one of the souks. Half a dozen men of different nationalities sat nearby. We each tried to talk about the heat in our own language, Urdu, Hindi, Pashto, English, but as nobody spoke a common tongue we made do with body language and theatrical gestures.

  I pulled my shirt collars, made an O with my lips, and rolled my eyes to the sky.

  The guy in purple hitched up his skirts and blew an imaginary wind underneath.

  The man with the bushy goatee mimicked an ape with sweat pouring out from his armpits.

  The man with henna colored hair laughed so much he spilt most of his tea into his saucer. He then drank the whole cup out of the saucer and had us guffawing as he hammed it up for wide eyed tourists who wandered in from the safety of the souks.

  The laughter perked me up. I realized that in addition to the heat, the sugary tea and caffeine had been having a druggy effect on me. Each caffeine and sugar high would last for about half an hour at a time and then I would crash unpleasantly.

  Time for another hit.

  When I felt good enough to cause some trouble, I bowed out and left my new friends. Condensation already streamed down shop windows as if an invisible rainstorm had just passed overhead. Reflected in one of the shop fronts I caught sight of a hideous sweaty beast with wild unkempt hair.

  An hour later back on the other side of the creek I wore a crisp, cool and clean off-the-peg shirt and trousers from a Saks in one of the malls.

  I sucked down another intensely sweet and strong Arabic coffee and dropped my spent clothes and unnecessary kit back at the car. The hotels had a strict policy about cameras in the public areas. I figured the same rule applied with any recording device but I wanted to try something I’d figured out with my phone.
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  Traffic was ugly so I hailed a cab.

  It dropped me right outside the front door of the Kingston Hotel. The Muslim driver, a Pakistani gent, spent the entire trip breaking my balls and telling me how we westerners were crazy.

  ‘You marry for love. Everyone knows that doesn’t work. Two people in my village, they married for love, then they divorced one year later. So you see?’ he said slamming his hand against the steering wheel.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Why you marry for love? If you find a good Muslim wife, she mind your home, she mind your kids, you will be with her all your life.’

  ‘Yes but if you don’t love her or like her you probably won’t want to be with her all of your life, that’s the point.’

  ‘Nonsense. You go to prostitute zone, then no problem.’

  ‘So you marry a woman you don’t want to be with and then go to prostitutes for the rest of your life? Adopt and get a maid my friend, it’ll cost you less.’

  ‘Ah, you are the idiot my friend. If you marry for love, you won’t be happy. But you go to the prostitute zone now. Now you will be happy eh?’

  ‘Yes indeed. Maybe I fall in love with a prostitute hey?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I love a prostitute too, fuck many, many,’ he said, happily misunderstanding me. ‘All the men who get in my cab, I take them there. Good fucking.’

  ‘Yes, good fucking,’ I said, ‘So stop talking about the wife you don’t love, you’re putting me off.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ he yelped, ‘Fuck you my friend.’

  ‘And fuck you too my good man,’ I paid him and got out of the cab before he could decide to join me for the evening.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Like its bouncers the Kingston Hotel stood squat and aloof. Architecturally it was more days gone by than cutting edge. It didn’t even attempt to be a five-star hang out. No red carpets waited for pseudo VIPs or cord barriers with fake brass poles for the orderly queues of would be celebrities.