2.7 Books, Equations and a Virgin with a Gun

I took another swig of the beer, swished it in my mouth, and then let the liquid slip down my throat. I felt my head, a terrible headache shot through my head.

“What the fuck?” Now I wasn't one for swearing, but the situation warranted it.

My detective had drawn what looked like a gun; he was pointing it straight at my head. “Now you listen here,” he shouted his trigger hand was shaking, new at the job. “I want you to tell me everything you know.”

“Everything I know?” I imagined shaking my head trying to get some sense out of the questions. Well I knew about accountancy, I knew that the square root of 3,289 was 57 rounded by the decimal point, I knew male belly dancers in Turkey were called rakkas and was apparently an old art form. I knew the capital of Burkina Faso was Ouagadougou and the language predominately spoken was French. I knew a man skilled in the sixty-four arts of Karma Sutra was looked upon with love by his own wife, by the wives of others, and by courtesans. I knew this; perhaps detective Ron Howard was interested in this.

Square root of 1? One of course.

And I knew I was standing in front of a man with a gun.

“Tell me where it is?”

I glanced down at the bottle that was in my right hand, my mouth was dying for a sip of the cold sparkling drink.

“Where what is…?”

“The book…!” The gun was nearing my head.

“Ummm,” I said. “What book?”

“Your father’s book.”

I know it wasn’t time to joke, but I found the situation funny, me dying for a drink, a gun raised to my head and a shaking detective looking for a book.

“Well my father has thousands of books…” I realised what I said and retracted my words, “Had thousands of books…had…”

“The book from that guy, that famous author…”

Why was the square root of one one? What was the reason for having positive and negatives, wholes, and halves, one’s and two’s, odds and evens? And why was a detective holding a gun at me, it seemed absurd.

Why was a virgin a virgin? I thought of this for a second, putting aside any questions to do with square roots or scientific measurements. Virginity refers traditionally to a person who has not yet engaged in penetrated sex, in the case of a woman vaginal intercourse. At times it’s sometimes used to describe someone who has not engaged in sexual activities in general. I was standing in front of a virgin with a gun, I could see it in his scared eyes, his shaking arms and bending knees. He never had to kill someone before, and from the look of him he had been told by whomever that he would no longer be left with such a title. Now it was strange perhaps that I referring to him as a virgin with a gun, but it sound logical, his hand nervously on what I assumed was a smith and Wesson, not because I had one but because I had seen it on numerous occasions in this thriller called, ‘Prism.’ Where John Manson, the guy with a mop of blonde hair, a chiselled jaw line and steal blue eyes refers to his gun as Mr. Smith, now this movie was rated as the number one worse movie of all times, but it didn’t stop me from remembering it, from remembering John Manson get up from his leather chair, neatly prop his mature Cuban cigar on the crystal glass ash tray and say the lines that I could never forget, “Have you met Mr. Smith?” And immediately the silver gun that was in his holster would be in his hand, finger on the trigger and the entire clip rattling out of the chamber. A mess of a body would be on the floor waiting for the cleaners to arrive.

He was no John Manson, I realised this.

Bottle + head + raised bottle + interaction with the head = a man lying unconscious.

Theoretically this would work, but the angle would have to be right, speed and velocity would have to be taken into equation as well what would the action equal other than a knocked out man. Loss of beer? Yes, but there was more in the fridge. Perhaps it would mean that if I knocked out this guy who assumed a role as a man of the law, I would end up in trouble with the law.

I would have to take the chance. I lifted the beer high in the air, it felt heavier than usual and smashed as hard as I could on the little man’s head. I remember his eyes, afraid, knowing if he pulled the trigger he could avoid it, avoid the crashing down of bottle and glass. He couldn’t pull the trigger, he never had it in him, never wanted to say stare into the eyes of another man and say, “Goodbye, I’m sorry I had to kill you.”

I discovered that Bottle + head + raised bottle + interaction with the head equals just that— a man lying unconscious. He was lying there still as ever, blood on his head the gun lying next to him on the floor, glass all around him, I still had the bottleneck in my hand.

I threw myself down on the couch where the detective once sat, now he was lying sprawled on the white carpeted floor.

“Book…?” I questioned myself. “Book…? B-o-o-k…?” What did a book have to do with anything, why would a book result with a gun being raised to the head? Why would John Manson use a gun? To protect himself, to revenge the killing of his red haired wife, his son and his little dog? I mean killing people was one thing, but a dog as well was asking for it. John Manson took on everyone he felt was responsible for the killings. There was a reason, he never raised a gun and said the word book that would have been daft.

I raised my leg and kicked him in the stomach just to make sure he was still knocked out cold. There was no reply, not even a little whimper or a, “Pardon me, but that is my stomach you are kicking, would you mind?”

What to do? I thought for what seemed like forever, the light from outside crept through the dirty yellow net curtains and splashed a bit of orange light on the head board of my bed. The radio is still whining on about another million displaced in some famine in a place that could be the moon as far as I was concerned. What about the moon? Where children dying there? Maybe I could give some money so I could ship some poor Martian kid a goat so that his family could survive and possibly start a farm to breed more Martian kids. Anything was possible.

The gun was on the floor. I took a moment to think of my actions, though I really didn’t know why I done such a thing, or why the gun was pointing in my direction in the first place. I shook my head.

It is the truth that testifies, I’ve built a rocket that will reach the sky, take time to consider my love, my body fits yours like a glove.

Who wrote lyrics to such songs? It was the pits, and the thumping bass and beat mixed with a screaming synth made it even worse. The voice was falsetto somewhere in between a male and female sound, a crackling filter was running through it. Now such a thing was clever, I had to give the music producer credit and if I had a hat I’d take it off and say, “Fair dues!” Opposite sexes could relate to such as song perhaps women would say it sounded more like a man’s voice, it was full-bodied well toned and sexual. And the male sex could also attach any fantasy to the voice that they might picture as a robust 18 year old who liked to grab the bull by the horns. This meant that at least two types of marketing positioning was in place, guarantying greater success in the difficult world of the music industry. Now Michael Jackson was testament of such, he disguised himself as his sister though still retaining his male characteristics set off to conquer the music industry Ultimately this would lift Janet Jackson’s crestfallen image though it would be interesting to see the result if she became white like Jacko.

Sometimes the world is irrelevant; everything you have been taught at an early age is only what your parent’s parents’ passed down before them. So what is there to believe then if you realise that everything you believe is really your parents passing down generations of belief. There comes a time in your life when you decide when you wake up one day and decide for yourself if what your parents taught you is true. Of course you can deduce certain things like maybe your father taught you to drive, told you where the hand brake is and when to use the clutch. You use the driving skills he passed down on you, therefore to you that is a truth. Now religion is an entire subject, which can leave the head in a muddle and cause one if not careful to get overly engaged in pragmatic arguments. Say you were a Catholic since an early age because your parents took you to mass where you said a thousand Hail Mary’s. Now some little Muslim boy may question your belief in a virgin and tells you Muhammad is someone that you should get into. Now who is right? Everyone as everyone things they are right, in their mind and in their parent’s mind their religion is the one true religion.

It was time to leave, enough speculating, it would be smart of me to leave the man on the floor and take his gun.

So I did just that.