Even in the taxi I was worried. I had 50 soles in my pocket. Only 50. I'll be honest. 10 of it wasn't mine. 10 belonged to an American guy who a shared a dorm with in Cusco. I took the money out of his pocket while he was asleep. I tried to believe that he was an arsehole who deserved it, but he wasn't and he didn't. It may have only been £1.50 or so, but it bothers me still. The last time I stole anything was when I was 8 years old. It was a penny sweet and it haunted me. I expected the police to break down the door. As far as I can remember, these were the only two times I stole anything - I am a very small time thief. Office stationary doesn't count. That's compensation for lethal levels of tedium, also I was going to use th pens for things more interesting than administration or TV listings. I felt I was setting the pens free to nest in my pocket. Like an animal rights activist. Not stealing. Releasing.
My wallet had been lost/stolen. It depends who asks. People who lose things are idiots. People who have things stolen are victims. No one would dare call a victim an idiot, so I know which inaccurate tag I would like slapped on me. I had been living off one emergency cash withdrawal (an odyssey of sitting around and ineptitude in itself) and a bunch of Western Union transfers. I thought $100 would easily cover my last three days, but it's amazing how breathing in and out costs money. Particularly when you breathe in through a rolled bank note with nose at one end and cheap Peruvian cocaine at the other. Don't think poorly of me. I recompensed by eating two course meals for 50p in a marketplace next to cow's mouths and pig's bollocks. I was further reassured that airport tax was 15 soles. (In Peru you have to pay to leave the country. Insulting the host or liking Mohammed a bit too much isn't enough to get you a free pass out.) It would be a close thing. I had 20 soles left after taxi fare and I was sure I could just about swing it. However, the phrase "just about" started to prey on my mind. The bus I had travelled on to Lima had got a flat, and it was a good tense hour before the crew managed to change it. For a while we just drove on the flat.
Q. What do you call a Peruvian bus with a flat tire?
A. A Bolivian bus.
The season travellers laughed, the non-English speaking Spanish were suspiciously quiet, But the joke was out of relief that we were actually moving at all. Literally everything hung on me catching my plane. All I had was a box of crackers and a limited amount of water. For the first time in my life, I coveted plane food. I desired to pull back that foil lid like a suicide bomber wants to peel back a virgin's hymen. I COULD NOT miss that flight.
So, 20 soles left in my pocket upon reaching the airport. 15 for tax, leaving me 5 for spending money. A cup of coffee perhaps. Something to fool my stomach that it was getting nutrition of some description. There's no harm in lying to your body – as long as you occasionally do something nice to it. Buy it flowers, take it for a nice dinner, pay it back for all the abuse. An indissoluble marriage between body and you. Til death do you part.
"Do you want to pay airport tax now? It's 90 soles or 30 dollars". OK. Don't panic. I'm sure this happens all the time. There's probably a form you can fill in. They might let you off. None of the above. The girl looked embarrassed. She tried to offer solutions. Go to a bank. Get Western Union. Use a credit card. None of which was possible for me in the next hour. Naturally I was angry. Not in the usual self-recriminating way, more in the righteous English man abroad way. Why did I have to pay? I have a beard.. I have an Irish surname. Couldn't they just extradite me? I already had the plane ticket. They'd barely have to lift a finger. I won't lie, I was a wee bit distressed. Like as if I found out that I hadn't been born but was cloned from one of Andie McDowell's genital warts. I'm not Eddie Murphy in Beverley Hill's Cop. I can't scam myself out of things by being all creative and black. The only reason people feel sorry for me is because I look a bit pathetic. This, at least, I had going for me.
I saw two menopausal women. Probably mothers, I thought. I spotted a Morrisons bag. Before I could even start my sob story they told me they had a flight to catch and scurried off. It turns out that they were on the same flight as me. I saw the old crones arguing with some poor cash registrar. They were the cropped-hair, gold-ear ringed, dried up old biatches that are only good for dinner lady duty or to be ground into Polyseal for other old moochers to stick their plastic teeth in with. Solyent Green Dental Solutions. The Eskimos would have approved. The Inuits would be in to it. I know that their husbands must either be screwing other people or watching unhealthy amounts of pornography. I am a misanthrope, but I overcompensate for it by feeling guilty, loathing myself and being friendly to people. However these old fucks deserve everything they get. They may have their reasons, but should they be skewered through the eyeball tomorrow by shafts of frozen urine fallen from passing aeroplanes, it wouldn't be a minute too soon. It would be a great youtube nasty. A small price to pay for top notch entertainment.
I saw two guys in the queue. They were in their 30s, with backpacks, tattoos and walking sticks. What choice did I have? They listened to me without saying no or yes. They seemd unaware of the tax and discernibly uncomfortable about me asking them for money. I used phrases like "I know you don't know me from Adam" and "Finsbury Park" to gain their trust, but I knew it wasn't enough to reassure them. I followed one of them to a cash machine. Their bank only had enough for them to take out, apparently. In fairness, he substituted money for ire. He told me the best thing to do was to 'make a fuss'. Stir things up...
WILL FINISH THIS TOMORROW. EXCITING, EH?