Monday 13th June
Uncle Jamal turned up at our apartment uninvited last night, and announced his arrival by stumbling up the stairs and falling flat on his face as he reached the terrace. To begin with I thought the moustachioed drink ridden figure was the caretaker who lives downstairs, but the dirty ochre shirt and trousers that are one half of a greying old suit Jamal has had since the seventies and wears constantly were unmistakable.
Who the fuck told him our address?! Our faces fell in unison, except for Sandy, who exclaimed “yessssss Jamster you old bastard! Did you bring the crack?”
“Yes blud, and da gun too” lisped Jamal in his ethnic Croydon drawl.
“Thafe” replied Sandy, and went to fetch his pipe.
For God’s sake. This is the last thing we need. Jamal was banned from holidaying with us after the farce in Ibiza a few years ago where he got so drunk that he climbed up into the DJ box at Amnesia and headbutted Carl Cox. In the subsequent brawl all Muck FM crew were prohibited from setting foot again on the White Isle until April 2044, which will make me 72 years old, and have long taken Jamal to his 72 virgins in paradise. Why virgins? If there’s a paradise, I’d rather have 72 filthy sluts who know what they’re doing than a gaggle naive spinsters…
But I digress.
Sandy came back from the bedroom with a small glass pipe and lighter, and after standing for a moment with a pleased look on his face and chewing on his straggly moustache, Jamal dropped his trousers and pushed his grubby hairy hand into the back of his yellowing pants.
“Come on, come on” rasped Sandy, moving from one foot to another impatiently, licking his lips.
Jamal bent further over, his face just inches from our dinner plates on the table, and the smell of cheap whiskey wafted into our nostrils as his face tensed up and he began visibly pushing and straining as his fingers fished around inside his rectum.
“Come on!” hissed Sandy, a snarl on his lips and his eyes on the gun.
“Fuck off… wait a minute, here it comes” grunted Jamal, and a moment later held up a stained piece of clingfilm triumphantly. Sandy snatched it from his hand, seemingly unconcerned about where it had just come from, and greedily ripped off the outer layer of clingfilm with his scrabbling hands. Inside the last layer (which had been ripped off by Sandy’s teeth with a desperate sob) lay an opaque coloured rock. With a whoop and muttering “thafe” repeatedly under his breath he stoked the pipe up with shaking hands.
By this time Handy had come out onto the terrace to see what all the commotion was about. He paused for a moment in the doorway with eyebrows raised at the sight of Jamal’s self-administered finger enema, then asked him if he’d brought the little novelty green cucumber dildo as requested. “Yeah” replied Jamal, “but I’m going to need the lube and tongs to get that out.”
So Handy was involved too. What a surprise. Next year’s holiday is going to be just me, Mrs Muck and the geisha girls I’m telling you. It’s not even worth berating them anymore, it just makes them smugger than ever, and if they’re going to be around me I’d rather not pour fuel on their fires. I asked Sandy why on earth he needed a gun, and was about to pick it up and examine it when I hesitated and asked Jamal where it had been stashed for the journey here.
“Stuffed it down my bollocks innit. My arsehole ain’t a fucking Tardis you know.”
Sandy looked up, thick plumes of crack smoke coming out of his nostrils, ceasing only towards the end as he started to blow crack smoke rings that carefully and deliberately drifted into my eyes. Smirking at his success as my tears formed he told me with a kiss of the teeth that Gunny is here “for protection innit.”
Apparently the twins had already discussed obtaining a weapon out here, for both protection and prestige. In light of the strange goings on down at the old club coupled with Sandy’s need to assuage his cold turkey, they decided to call Jamal who could solve both the problems in one fell swoop. Well, Jamal jumped at the chance of a holiday, even if it meant smuggling weapons down his bollocks and drugs up his arse. Just another weekend away for him really. Apparently he caught a ferry to either France or Spain (he wouldn’t say which as it’s an inside contact that gets him through customs) and hitched his way overland down to join us in southern Portugal. I asked him how he got here so quickly, and his reply was a nasty little laugh, sly wink and a nod towards Gunny, a slick silver ladies’ pistol which lay on the table glinting under the lights. Jamal claims it’s a family heirloom and “gets the job done”, and I’m afraid the rumours about what happens to aggressive customers who are dragged out the back of the Camel Toe club are probably disturbingly accurate. If you want to picture Jamal in your head and get an accurate idea of just how unsettling a man he is, think a cross between Rutger Hauer in The Hitcher, Borat and Joe Pesci from Goodfellas.
And now here he is, here with us, on our holiday. Our peaceful holiday. Our break from the world. Our escape. Jamal, Handy and Sandy, all cracked up to the eyeballs with a loaded gun and a crate of cheap local whiskey.
Great.