O Darts ch 13

When I came back from work Seven was there. He was in the kitchen
making a fruit salad. There were bits of fruit everywhere. A cucumber
poked out of his back pocket, a lychee sat precariously on his
shoulder, a carrot glanced over the waistband of his jeans. That's how
it always was when Seven prepared food. Once on a Sunday afternoon I
had come across a saut?ed potato nestled between his toes.

"Captain Vegas is in our bed," Seven said after he had kissed me as he
always did when I came home.

"Our bed?" I said. "Our bed?" I laughed and hopped from one foot to
the other.

Seven flushed red so that his tattoos looked like embroidery in
bas-relief on a damson bedspread.

"There's a story on his cock," said Seven, blatantly ignoring his
chameleonic sea change. "About two mice and a spaceship."

"I wrote that," I said and scooped the lychee off Seven's shoulder and
into my mouth. "I hope you don't mind."

Now it was Seven's turn to laugh and his colour returned to its normal
placid tattooed hue. "Mind," he said. "MIND. That's Captain Vegas we're
talking about."

He was right, it was, and somehow I had forgotten. What was wrong with
me? It was almost as if subconsciously I was beginning to accept
Captain Vegas as a normal person, as one of the boys.

"Oh," said Seven, pulling the cucumber from his pocket and dicing it
like a gambler dividing his chips on a bad day in a large city in the
Nevada desert, "there's a message for you on the answer-machine. From
The Poet."

"Why didn't you say?" I said. "Why didn't you say? The Poet! Gadzooks
Batman." And I rushed into the lounge, laughing loudly at my comic book
behaviour.

In the lounge I pressed the green flashing button and the machine
spluttered to life, doing a very good impression of The Poet's
voice.

"Hi Loop Garoo. STOP. I'm coming home. STOP. Pick me up at the
airport. STOP. In the cucumber van. STOP. It's The Poet. STOP."

I looked at the answer-machine shooting daggers. "You didn't tell me
when," I muttered viciously under my breath to no-one in particular
except that moulded plastic casing.

"NOW. STOP," said the machine. "NOW. STOP. GET A MOVE ON. STOP. THE
POET. STOP."

Then it was all blurred action. I rushed upstairs and pulled Captain
Vegas into his willing underpants. I rushed downstairs and grabbed
Seven and his fruit salad. We all rushed out to the fruitmobile and
seconds later we screeched to a halt in front of 16's house. 16 climbed
out of his window and slid down the drainpipe and into the window of
the car. And then we were off.

Helpful signs counted down the miles to Heathrow. At first they were
oblique. They said things like LONDON 153 MILES. But as we got closer
they became more specific. For example HEATHROW 15 MILES. And then
closer still they were downright friendly. TERMINAL FOUR. LEFT-HAND
LANE.

The last sign was best of all. It was large and green and had a neon
arrow pointing downwards. It said THE POET. HERE. And below the arrow,
sure enough, was The Poet. He was standing there, quite still, his
hands in his pockets, looking quite himself. And with him was someone
else, someone who wasn't someone I knew, someone Asian. To be more
blunt, if that isn't clear enough, with The Poet was a man who wouldn't
have looked out of place in a repeat episode of Tenko late at night on
UK Gold.

We screeched to a halt at the sign and all piled out. It seemed that
everyone was talking at once.

"The Poet, you're back."

"Nice to see you Poet."

"This is Akinobu Matsumoto."

"I'm Seven. Remember me?"

"That's a mouthful."

"I have a new story on my cock."

"That's a mouthful!"

"Aki-nobu Mat-su-mo-to."

"Nice to meet you."

"Genki des-ka?"

"Did you get my letters?"

"Is that Leia Organa over there?"

"What a coincidence!"

"Can I read it?"

"Leia Organa!"

"It's a good story."

"Leia. Hi."

"Get your cock out Vegas, don't be shy."

"Why is it always me? WHY ME?"

"Captain Vegas. The Poet. Akinobu
Matsumoto. Seven. 16. Leia Organa. Me, Loop Garoo. The whole damn team.
Who'd have believed it? Who'd have thought such a thing? Now, are we
going to fit in the fruit-mobile."

"Yes. Yes. YES."

"Did you save the federation darling?"

In the fruit-mobile The Poet told us about Japan. He filled in the
holes from his letters. At the same time Captain Vegas apologised from
making the holes. He blamed it on the absence of Leia Organa in general
and his sexual frustration in particular. We said we understood and
Leia Organa said she couldn't wait to get her eyes on Captain's Vegas's
cock.

"You should see my big toe," I said, thinking about the story there. I
shot a knowing wink in the direction of Captain Vegas and he grinned
back.

In fact I hadn't yet seen the story myself and was unaware of either
the plot or the characters described therein. It was probably a tale of
high adventure on the high seas. That's what I thought most likely.
That was the kind of thing Captain Vegas was into. High seas.
Adventure. Quite at odds with his Elvis in Vegas image. It was
something to do with an escape from the desert I guessed. All that
Nevada sand can get to a man.

But I digress, for the thing that we were most interested in on that
journey home was Akinobu Matsumoto. And The Poet was more than happy to
oblige. He was all Akinobu Matsumoto this and Akinobu Matsumoto
that.

For example, "Akinobu Matsumoto is blah blah blah," he said. "Akinobu
Matsumoto is blam blam blam." And sometimes when he got carried away it
was just, "Akinobu Matsumoto, Akinobu Matsumoto, Akinobu Matsumoto"
with nothing in between.

After a while 16 had an idea. He said that Akinobu Matsumoto was far
too much of a name for one man. Especially if The Poet was going to say
the name so much. He said we should call Akinobu Matsumoto either "Aki"
or "Mat". He said we should put it to the vote. We agreed. Our ears
agreed and our hearts agreed.

Firstly we voted on "Aki" and secondly on "Mat".

It was a draw. The same number of hands for each.
What were we to do? The scenery rushed past, cars, trees, fields. We
didn't know. The Castro grew closer. We didn't know. We didn't know.
Then Seven had an idea.

"Why not AkiMat?" he said from the front while at the same time
swerving around a Ford Fiesta with two kids holding a sign up in the
back window. "Smile if you're an old boot," it said.

"AkiMat," I said rolling the syllables around my tongue.

"AkiMat," said 16 and he grinned.

"AkiMat," said Captain Vegas and he slapped his thigh.

"AkiMat," said Leia Organa. "We used to have a pilot called AkiMat. He
was quite a guy."

And so it was. AkiMat. That was his name. AkiMat from Japan.

"Are you happy with your Japanese trip then?" I asked The Poet.

"I haven't palpitated in days," he said.

"Ah!" said Captain Vegas loudly, jiggling his hips. "Ah!" He said
again. "But have you fallen to the floor."

"Not once," said The Poet.

"It's a miracle," I said.

"No," said The Poet, "it's love. I always knew it would be like
this."

"Yes," I said, and I looked at the back of Seven's head. Love, that
was exactly how it was.

"WHAT ABOUT YOU AKIMAT?" said 16, twisting in his seat. "WHAT DO YOU
THINK OF ENGLAND?"

Akimat nodded his head. "Yes. It seem very nice."

"GOOD," said 16. "JUST AS LONG AS YOU KNOW ANY FRIEND OF THE POET'S IS
A FRIEND OF OURS. THERE'S NO PREJUDICE HERE."

"Why are you shouting?" I asked putting one finger in each ear.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" said 16.

"No," I said. "It isn't."

"Well," said 16, winking furiously, "that's how you speak to
foreigners." He turned to AkiMat. "ISN'T THAT RIGHT, AKIMAT?"

AkiMat took a deep breath. He looked at The Poet and smiled a silent
Japanese smile. Then he looked at 16. He opened his mouth wide.
"THAT'S RIGHT, BECAUSE YOU'RE A FOREIGNER TO ME, AREN'T YOU? SO WHEN I
TALK TO YOU I MUST SHOUT ALL THE TIME."

16's hair was standing on end. His features were pulled back in a
G-force grimace. He was shocked, bedazzled.

"Sorry," he said in a very little voice.

The point was made and made well.

"Come on AkiMat," said Seven from the front, changing the subject
quite cleverly, "show us something Japanese. We want to see something
Japanese. Something from the land of the rising sun."

"OK," said AkiMat. "I show you something Japanese." And he did.
AkiMat reached into his bag. He took out a sheaf of papers. He handed
us each one of the papers. Then he told us to do as he did. We
did.

We folded the paper lengthways. Again. Again with a double corner
fold. We creased one edge and then the other in a mirror of the one
before. We had a nose. We twisted the nose, doubling over the paper,
forming a thickness that wasn't there before. Then we concentrated on
the other end. This part was difficult. We just watched first. We
watched again and then we did it. Slowly. Slowly. There. Done.

"Wow," said 16.

Captain Vegas jiggled his hips in a joyous movement.

"It's a dart," I said holding the newly formed paper level with my
eyes.

"Yes," said AkiMat and he smiled that silent Japanese smile. "Dart.
Now wait."

AkiMat took another piece of paper from his bag. This piece was
larger, thicker. AkiMat's hands then moved in a blur of improbable
movement. We saw shapes that appeared momentarily and then disappeared
like early experiments with moving pictures. Or kids' flicker-books.
Finally it was ready.

"Wow," said 16. "Double wow."

Captain Vegas's hips bucked in a way that would have rocked the boat
had we been on one.

"It's a dart-board," I said.

"Yes," said AkiMat. "Dart-board."

We attached the dart-board to the back of Seven's head, he was sitting
in the front seat driving, and then we played darts as we went back to
The Castro.

Sometimes if someone threw the dart too sharply it would pierce the
paper board and pierce the back of Seven's head. This is the noise he
made.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!"

Just like that, all the way home. "Ow! Ow! Ow!"