Mammy Low by Albi Vinehart

"I keep asking myself - what would Gandhi do, or Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, then I realize - those guys all got shot."
John Lurie

A stop over for a thriller in manila: one week to recover from jet lag and the hangover from England before hitting Australia. Except in reality it’s only going to mean more jet lag and more hangovers. At least I had those downers; animal tranquilisers I had bought from home. After an aborted attempt to buy cigarettes, I was returning to my hotel defeated and discombobulated. It was then, that things took a turn for the more interesting.

Shola Luna was her name, gazing welcomingly from the sunny side of the street. She’s obviously a transsexual too, but beautiful and legs as long as an Icelandic summer. And tits like polar icecaps. She was famous for being famous in Manila, and no surprise there. First stop was a Tequila bar then on to Hobbits a bar staffed entirely by dwarves and midgets. Being thrown out of the night club in a 5 star hotel was the last thing I remembered of the night; the lady manager seemed to take exception to our outrageous manner.

Next day we go on the guest list to a first class fashion show, in the same 5 star basement, via one of Shola's benefactor who lends me a silk shirt. The manager’s manor now changed to obsequious smiles, ushering us to our seats. So here I am faced with the cream of Filipino fashion, girls so beautiful I can’t talk. If only I hadn’t taken those animal tranquilizers. The day, then days, blurred into one; Laurent Garnier playing in a night club where the locals and visitors all gaze longingly at Shola’s tits on total display through a sheer net top. I spent a night off with a bar girl. The young guy I sat with was intent on taking home the Mamma San, the middle aged and long retired woman who pimps out the girls; I left him bartering his price. The next afternoon Shola laughing in the doorway, my girl complaining from the bed about how the downers had made her oversleep.

I needed to get out of Manila. A couple of days with Shola by a volcano with an artist gentled me down some. I was convinced Shola wanted to rob me out there, in the wilderness, but nothing could have been further from the truth. My last night back in the metropolis ended with a lovers tiff, after staying up all night drinking, to catch the morning plane; Shola threatening to have me killed. And I knew she could. It takes a while to realize people really do know killers and then you meet them yourself. A paid killer in India, who asks you why you didn’t wash that apple before eating it, after miming the action of shooting to explain what he does for a living, or that guy in Thailand who had made a car bomb and blew up his neighbour. After a snack of a fertilized egg, I staggered onto the plane at dawn, bound for Australia.