Originally written May 2, 2007
There is one place in this city where the sun never sets and the nights carry on for an eternity. Where the good and the bad are one in the same, for all roads will lead us back to our home in Lan Kwai Fong. You could measure the heartbeat of the city on this tucked away hallowed hill. Tourists. Triads. The Lost and the Found. Prostitutes. Hippies. Yuppies. Beggars. Thieves. The Sacred and the Profane.
Insomnia lives up to its namesake as the rotation of cover bands play through the evening to the crowd of drunken Aussies and the Philippino women of the night. At the Annex wine bar you find the locally displaced seeking that classier alternative to the brothel that runs through the street level below. Agave will treat you to the best margaritas and co-ed bathrooms from here to Wan Chai. Schnuarrbart, German for handle bar mustache, serves you up the finest sausage and true Bavarian mead this side of Lufthansa (ciao to you Barcelona). Club Fong, where it all began. The Whiskey Priest. The Keg, a misplaced Canadian hockey bar as there ever was. DragonEye’s models, celebrities and the lone American that dared to make it his own. Volar’s red ropes and curtains. That little Spanish bar where one soul was enough. The Cavern, where we all came to dance the night away.
Whatever your vice, whatever it may be at this moment, Lan Kwai Fong’s brilliance will be there for you on that day then. Perhaps a westerner familiar with a Midwestern college town outlook would disregard our block party as nothing more than the eastern take on the all or nothing culture. The delicacies involved here are more refined my friend, intricately woven into our unique culture, where the good and the bad shine like the glimmering lights above us.
Like any night in Lan Kwai, the obnoxious and treacherous are the backdrop to that perfect evening just out of reach. From a wine tasting party with the locals, to an Insomnia cover band unexpectedly treating us all to The Wall. The night drifts into obscurity; we let the world know where we belong. The Finnish, the French, and American, who we are and what they could never be. And on this night that old familiar song plays once again, that we can be heroes, as the persistent Asian little man takes interest in the girls you hardly know. There was never a choice as we headed him off, each one of the girls finding solace behind me, as I would stare him down to leave my charges alone. The good and the bad no longer, washing over us in a brilliant light. For one moment is all that it would take, with something more than a glance, a tightening of the resolve, a connection of fist made with a resounding effect. The bouncers know me, swiftly we work together. Like the Triads and police in the streets around us, the Gweilo and the enforcement, we take care of each other and those around us. The party rolls out of control, and no one knows the difference. For what else was expected of me, but to make sure on this night we are all as right as Rain once was.
The sun would be rising within the hour as I made my way back toward our old world district. Even in the most vulnerable moments, there was never reason to worry about safety. The white man is left to his own devices on the island. But tonight was different; the balance between the good and the bad had been leveraged. I should have been more conscious of my surroundings. I should have expected a reprisal. I should have known better. As the night drifts off into another reality, but for just a moment in time, the song remains the same.
There is never enough warning to a fight you don't see coming. The scuffling of feet, the sounds of movement behind you, and a last grunt as the cocked back arm follows through and makes its connection. And then there were the three that made a stand for all the right beyond them. A punch to the head goes barely notice, but the kick to the stomach, rolling across the brick paved alleyway, reality washes over me in waves. I may not understand a word they are shouting at me, but I know the sound anger, of violence and hate, and I know one of these men, the little man from Insomnia that I wouldn’t let make a scene with my girls. They followed me; they waited for me to leave. And now someone finds themselves rather intent on leaving an imprint on my shoulder. One after another, solid kicks to that right shoulder, as if it’s being pushed back inward. Three times I put up guard to block the kick, and three times he found a way to connect. But there was not going to be a fourth try.
And just as I roll out of the way, I wrap my arms around his outstretched leg. The opening is there, take it, this is your life. With everything I have left in that busted shoulder, I slam my elbow down on his knee as hard as I could fight. Whoever he was, down he went holding that knee, shouting in a discomfort to say the least. Seemed to be a fair trade at that point. I staggered to my feet away from the other two, my eyes boiling over in red, bleeding from the mouth and who knows where else, speaking the few words of Chinese I knew...ta ma da.
Daring them now, hulked out and feeling back in it. Take a punch, and throw one yourself. Find an opening for a headbutt. I always want a reason to throw a headbutt.
Trading shots with the two of them still standing there. There could have been an army waiting for me and it wouldn’t have made a difference. You could almost feel sorry for them. Swinging wildly now, with no care for what comes out of this alleyway, I am a man possessed. The red, nothing but red, rage washes over me as my mind drifts back to that day then in Austin where once upon a time this all began. On this day, there was no heaven that could hide from me. Lan Kwai Fong. Together again. For tonight, this was my life, as good as it was ever going to get.
The next sound I hear is that of glass shattering, pieces trickling to the ground below.
My head pounding, painfully surprised and unaware. The stars they dance in front of my eyes once more, the faces seem so out of focus. Once upon a time we could be heroes, and then there was nothing, nothing but the black…
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