Standing On Top

Chapter 21

Lyttelton, New Zealand

January 31, 1991

Jake opened his eyes slowly, trying to focus on the softly spinning ceiling fan above his head. After a few moments, he was able to do so. He watched it spin round and round, casting faint shadows on the vaulted ceiling of his bedroom. The light in here was dim. It was always dim in the mornings, usually until eleven o'clock or so during these summer months. His newly constructed house, and the bedroom within it, faced southwest, toward the town of Lyttelton below. On New Zealand's South Island, the rising sun was in the northeast. It wasn't until it cleared the Port Hills that its rays were able to directly penetrate his house. Jake liked it that way. It allowed him to sleep in most mornings — something that he usually needed to do since he was in the habit of staying up very late each night.

The sound that had awakened Jake was the rumbling of a diesel engine and the crunching of tires across the asphalt access road of his property. This sound was followed by a few clanks and thumps and then the revving of that diesel engine as it settled into a high idle. Jake had been in occupancy of the house long enough to know what those sounds were. It was the propane service, coming to check and fill his tanks. Though he had a throbbing headache, a dry mouth, and his mind was not quite clear enough yet to remember just what he had been doing last night or what time he'd gone to bed or if he had anything that needed to be done today, the fact that the propane truck was here meant it was Wednesday morning, 9:45 AM, New Zealand Standard Time. In New Zealand, you could set your calendar and your watch by such a service.

Jake took a few breaths, trying vainly to expunge the headache a bit. It was to no avail. Yet another hangover was rooted well within his body, the result of drinking far too much alcohol the night before. This was, of course, nothing new. He turned his head to the right, looking at the nightstand to confirm the time. He could not see the digital clock that sat there. Two wine glasses, four Steinlager cans, an overflowing ashtray, and two empty condom wrappers obstructed the view.

"Oh yeah," he mumbled, looking at the prophylactic packages. "Kate was here."

Kate Crawford was nineteen years old, raven-haired, pale-skinned (like many Christchurch area natives), and solidly built, but not lacking in feminine curves. She had a full bosom capped with large, extremely sensitive nipples. She was also a hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, functional alcoholic who was a fixture in most of the waterfront bars down by the docks.

Kate worked in her widowed thirty-eight year old mother's seafood shop down in Lyttelton. She, like the fabled Molly Malone, was a fishmonger, and that really was no wonder, because so was her mother and her mother before. Or so Jake was told anyway. He had never met the mother before before (as it were), since she'd been dead these past ten years, but he had met the mother — Elizabeth Crawford. She was nothing more or less than an older version of Kate herself — the same curvy body, large breasts, foul mouth, and love of ethyl alcohol ingestion. Jake had, in fact, slept with the mother ten or twelve times before finally giving into lust one night and getting it on with the daughter instead. Not that Elizabeth minded all that much. True, she had been a bit peeved when she found out, but as long as Jake still bought her drinks down at the Lazy Eye Tavern and gave her a good pounding once a week or so, she kept her peace. And she always reserved for Jake the choicest selections of fish, crabs, and squid that passed through her hands from the fishing fleet that called Lyttelton Harbor home.

So last night it had been Kate who had come calling. He remembered the early part of the evening. She'd arrived about seven-thirty, thirty minutes after the shop was closed for the night, and he'd prepared her a meal of stuffed pork loin, homemade horseradish applesauce, and steamed asparagus. Both of the Crawford females absolutely despised seafood at this point in their evolution. After dinner they'd had a few more drinks while watching one of the new release videotapes that Jake had shipped to his house from the United States — tapes that would not become available in New Zealand for at least another five months. This particular movie had been none other than The Northern Jungle, Greg Oldfellow's atrocity on film. Somehow it had been included in the latest package and Kate had been dying to see it. And so he'd put it in and they'd sat there, drinking mixed drinks and wine and beer while Jake continually badmouthed the flick and Kate continually hushed him because she was actually interested in what was going to happen.

Jake didn't remember anything past the first major battle scene. He didn't know if they'd even finished the movie. Although the condom wrappers on his nightstand and the heavy smell of musk in the air suggested that he and Kate had engaged in a lengthy session of sexual activity in this bed, Jake did not remember even leaving the couch to come upstairs.

"I have got to stop drinking so much," he muttered, not for the first time or the last. The hangovers were bad enough but the blackouts — the periods of negative memory storage — were downright frightening.

Kate was no longer in the bed. He could tell by the rumpled covers and make-up stains on the pillow that she had spent most of the night here cuddled up with him, probably drooling on his neck. But at some point, around sunrise more than likely, she had gotten up, dressed herself, and let herself out the front door. She was, after all, a working girl and the seafood shop opened every weekday morning at eight o'clock sharp. Alcoholic barflies though they might be, the Crawford fishmongers were good at their profession and possessed a typical New Zealand work ethic.

Jake rolled out of bed and put his feet on the floor. Slowly he stood up, having to take a few deep breaths as a wave of nausea and dizziness swept over him, as the pounding in his head increased to the point he could almost hear it. Gradually, the pain and dizziness eased up a little, enough to make him realize that his bladder was uncomfortably full. He opened his eyes and looked around the room for a moment, seeing the untidy heap of yesterday's clothes on the floor, as if they'd been frantically tossed there. He looked in the mirror over his nightstand, catching a glimpse of his reflection from the hips up. He was naked and what he saw was enough to make him look away in shame and embarrassment. His stomach was no longer the flat, firm, attractive anatomical feature it had been for the past twelve or thirteen years. It was now showing the definite beginnings of a beer belly.

"I need to start hitting the gym," Jake muttered, again, not for the first time or the last. This conviction, however, he was a little more serious about. If he didn't start some sort of an exercise program soon, his weight would push past the dreaded two hundred pound mark within a month.

He put this thought aside for the moment and turned toward the master bathroom. As he entered this room he found himself looking at another mirror under significantly better lighting conditions. This time, however, he could only see himself from the nipples up. This view was not so bad, except for the tattoo on his upper right arm. It was a tattoo that was only five days old now and still had the scabbing on it. It was a tattoo that Jake had absolutely no recollection of being put there.

Jake had never been all that into tattoos, although most professional musicians viewed them with damn near religious adoration. Matt, for instance, had both arms and most of his chest covered with a variety of tats, most music related, some so obscure that even he himself could not explain their meaning. Coop had full sleeves on both arms and the Intemperance logo across his upper back. Darren had had a quarter-sleeve on his left arm and a few random tats on his right arm. Even Nerdly had had some work done. On his left shoulder he sported the E=MC2 equation made famous by the intro to The Twilight Zone, and on his right shoulder he had a pair of musical notes intertwined and superimposed over a heart with the date of his marriage inscribed below it (Sharon had the exact same tat on her right shoulder, although she had to make sure it was never seen by her staunchly religious parents). Only Charlie was tattoo free among the former Intemperance members — his fear of germs too great to allow someone with a tattoo gun to touch his skin.

Until five days ago, Jake had only had one tattoo on his body. He had had it put there back in 1983, shortly after becoming fully cognizant of the fact that music was actually his life's career. It was a design he'd come up that was deeply symbolic of how he felt about the contrast between his love of music and the gladiator/indentured servant-like system of bringing it to the public. The tat was six inches long and stretched from his left shoulder to mid-way down his bicep. It showed the neck and headstock of a guitar. Gripping the neck and holding a G-chord, was a hand and wrist. A prominent gold wedding band was on the ring finger of the hand. Attached to the wrist was a handcuff, clenched brutally tight. The other cuff was attached further down the guitar neck.

Jake had always loved his tattoo and displayed it proudly (although he never explained its meaning to anyone — they either got it at first glance and didn't have to ask, or they were never going to get it even if it were explained). But this new tattoo, well... while it did represent something he'd come to love (and would probably require little explanation), it was not really something his sober mind would have chosen to have as a life-long decoration to his right arm.

He vaguely remembered the conversation that had led up to the tattoo. He had been down in The Lazy Eye on the waterfront, drinking shots of Jack Daniels and chasing them with pints of Steinlager with Kate, Elizabeth, and a group of five or six bar regulars who were always Jake's best friends when he was buying (which was whenever he was in the bar). Several of his companions — South Island natives, all of them — had balked when Jake had drunkenly proclaimed how much he loved New Zealand in general and South Island in particular. It simply was not possible, they insisted, to love a geographic locale as much as a native of said locale, especially not when one had spent less than six months of one's life living there.

Jake remembered that the argument had gone on for quite some time, sometimes friendly, sometimes heated to the point that they were flirting around the edges of physical confrontation. Everyone in the bar (and there were many there that night — it was Friday, after all) had an opinion on the matter and everyone had felt the need to share that opinion. There were those — a few — who agreed that it was possible for Jake to love New Zealand as deeply as he proclaimed — after all, what was not to love about it? — but this group was very much in the minority. Most people agreed that Jake was being melodramatic to some degree. A few were outright offended that Jake would even suggest that he loved their beloved country as much as they themselves did.

The argument had still been raging when Jake's brain, overwhelmed by alcohol, had stopped recording memories for the night. His body, however, continued to function quite well as evidenced by the fact that when he woke up in his bed the next morning (and yes, he had driven himself home at some point, piloting his 1990 Harley-Davidson Fatboy up the Summit Road, in the dark, without a helmet) the first thing he noticed — even before the hangover — was that his right upper arm was really hurting. He looked and found a bloody gauze bandage wrapped around the appendage from his shoulder to his elbow.

"What the hell?" he'd muttered, wondering if he'd been stabbed or if he'd crashed his bike.

It was only when he got into the bathroom and unwrapped the bandage did he discover that he was now the proud owner of a new tattoo. It was only after talking to Kate, Elizabeth, and the bartender that had been on duty that night that Jake got the story of how the tattoo had come to be there.

Apparently, just after midnight, Jake had tired of the endless argument regarding his love, or lack thereof, of his current country of residence. He had stood up on the bar and offered to prove how much he loved this fucking place.

"How are you going to prove it?" he was asked.

"Who's the best goddamn tat artist in Lyttelton?" he'd replied.

This, of course, led to a brief sub-argument, as there were almost a dozen tattoo shops in Lyttelton — it was a port town after all — and everyone in the room who had a tat (which meant pretty much every male and about half of the females) wanted to nominate their particular artist for the honor of "best in Lyttelton". Eventually, however, they all had to agree that there was one particular artist — Ian Blackworth — who was a definite cut above the rest. The owner and operator of Blackworth Tattoo, Ian was a second generation artist who had learned the trade from his father and had been putting ink on body parts for the past thirty-eight years.

"I want him!" Jake told the crowd. "Let's get him right now!"

When it was explained to Jake that Blackworth Tattoo was only open until nine o'clock on Fridays and that Ian was undoubtedly in bed in his room above the shop by now, Jake declared that he didn't give a fuck.

"Let's wake his ass up!" Jake was reputed to have yelled. "I'll make it worth his while!"

And so they had. And Jake did indeed make it worth his while, paying the equivalent of six hundred American dollars — plus a two hundred dollar tip — for a little over three hours worth of late night work that Jake now had absolutely no memory of receiving.

As he looked at his new tattoo in the mirror now, Jake took a little solace in the fact that he'd at least been coherent enough to demand the very best and that the townspeople he had been drinking with had been honest enough to point him in the right direction. After all, if you had to have an impulsive, alcohol-fueled mistake adorning your right arm for the rest of your life, you might as well have it put there by the best in the business.

Jake stepped closer to the mirror, turning so he could the image a little better. He supposed it would start to grow on him eventually — after all, he really did love New Zealand's South Island.

And that was what the tattoo was: A seven-inch by two and a half inch relief map of South Island drawn to scale in fine detail. The map included snow on the Southern Alps, all of the rivers, lakes, and coastal inlets large enough to be shown on a map of that size, and it even had Stewart Island, placed to scale and the proper distance from the southern tip of the main island. Though it was purely a geographic map — the image Ian had used to make the stencil had been taken from an atlas and showed no cities or place names — the town of Lyttelton was marked with a little red flag (apparently that had been Jake's idea — he wanted to be able to show people where his house was on the map).

Jake reached out and touched the tattoo now, running his finger over the Southern Alps, which was where most of the scabbing was concentrated. The tat no longer hurt, but it did still itch. He resisted the urge to scratch it and made a mental note to rub some baby oil on it at some point this morning. But first, his bladder was still straining.

The toilet seat was down, which meant that Kate had been the last one to use it, probably just before she got dressed and left this morning. Jake lifted it up, aimed his withered and abused penis towards the water, and let loose a torrent.

It took him perhaps three seconds to realize that he was peeing — he could feel it leaving his body in the normal fashion — but that he was neither hearing nor seeing any urine splashing into the toilet. He puzzled over this apparent contradiction for a moment before looking down at his penis. The end of it seemed to be swelling up grotesquely, like a balloon. He emitted a startled scream at this sight and another two or three seconds of sheer terror passed before he realized that he was still wearing his last condom and that he was, in effect, turning it into a urine-filled water balloon.

A brief struggle ensued as he tried desperately to pull the straining rubber from his manhood and stifle the flow of urine at the same time. The first effort proved to be successful after a vigorous, sharply painful tug. The second was less so and he ended up spraying a good portion of his pee over the floor, toilet tank, and rim before getting the stream redirected to the proper place. Meanwhile, much of the urine contained in the condom spilled out over his hands.

"Christ," Jake said, shaking his head as he looked at the puddles he'd created, as he contemplated having to clean all of this up. "It looks like the start of another beautiful day."

Construction on Jake's Port Hills home was officially completed on September 24, 1990. Under New Zealand law, however, escrow could not close and the deed could not officially be recorded in the hall of records until the owner of the property completed a walk-through and inspection. Jake could have designated a representative to perform the walk-through and inspection for him, but doing such a thing would have caused two or three more days worth of paperwork, more legal fees, and probably a dozen or so international phone calls and faxes. By far, the easiest course of action was to simply inspect the property himself.

This was not Jake's only reason for making the long flight, however. He wanted to see his new house, wanted to see the project he'd only glimpsed drawings and blueprints of so far standing in actuality. Nor was that the only reason either. The most compelling rationale was that he really didn't have anything else on his plate at the moment, nor was there anything on the horizon.

Just one week before, on September 17, negotiations between Jake (with Pauline as his representative) and the legal and productive team of National Records, reached what Pauline termed an "unbreakable impasse" on the issue of Jake's solo album contract. All of the other major labels had already rejected Jake on the grounds that his contract provisions were unreasonable, unworkable, and, if accepted, unlikely to produce anything resembling profit. National was the final stop, and the label most likely to compromise with Jake since they already had a relationship with him. Jake, however, was unwilling to compromise.

The sticking points were many. Jake insisted on complete artistic license, complete control of the hiring and direction of backing musicians, and absolutely no veto power of any material by the label on any grounds other than blatant obscenity. Jake would not sign off on any provision that even hinted that he had to perform a certain style of music. Furthermore, Jake refused to sign on for anything more than two option periods, refused to give up the rights to any of his new material for longer than the duration of the contract, and refused to accept less than thirty percent royalties.

"Jake, you're being unreasonable," Pauline told him on many occasions. "Negotiation is a game of give and take. You're not giving anything."

But Jake was stubbornly insistent. "I'm tired of being owned by a label," he told Pauline and every management type or lawyer he met in any negotiation meeting. "What I've given you is the absolute minimum I will accept in order to sign a contract. Take it or leave it."

They all left it. Their arguments were perhaps even valid ones. With a thirty-percent royalty rate, the label paying for all promotion, production, and tour expenses, and with the material being entirely left to the discretion of Jake — who had already disclosed the fact that he had no intention of doing Intemperance-like songs — it was highly possible, even likely, that the label would lose a significant amount of money on the deal. The recent flopping of The Northern Jungle epic, which had cost more than one hundred million to make but had only brought in thirty-eight million in profit, had served as a wake-up call to the entire entertainment industry. Sure, a certain amount of people would buy a Jake Kingsley solo album just because it was Jake Kingsley. But they needed more than just the die-hard fans to purchase the album. Under the terms of the contract Jake was suggesting, the album would have to go well over platinum before the label started seeing profit from it. If the album sucked ass as bad as The Northern Jungle sucked ass, it was entirely conceivable that it wouldn't even go gold and the label would eat all the production, touring, promotion, and distribution costs.

"Have a little faith in me," Jake told the executives and lawyers and accountants at each meeting. "I think I can make some music that people will like."

"That's what Wallace Grigsby III and Greg Oldfellow thought when they decided to make The Northern Jungle," he was told again and again. "I'm sorry, but we can't take that kind of chance with our stockholders' money."

And so that was that. On September 17, the final set of negotiations came to an end. On September 27, the registered letter came in Jake's mail, telling him that his house was done and that he needed to come inspect it so it could close escrow.

"I'm going to New Zealand for a while," Jake told Pauline on the phone less than an hour after receiving the letter.

"For how long?" she asked, after getting explanation for the trip.

"Not long," Jake told her. "I'm just going to inspect the house and get things settled there. When I come back, we'll start thinking about what our next step is."

"Our next step is to be more reasonable in negotiations, Jake," she told him. "That's the only way there is going to be a next step."

"As I said," Jake repeated. "We'll talk more about it when I get back."

The next day, Jake climbed onto a 747 at LAX. For baggage, he checked a single suitcase full of clothes and his old Fender guitar in a battered case. His carry-on contained shaving supplies, his checkbook, his address book, and two bottles of water. He landed at Auckland International on October 30 and was picked up by Zachary Fields, who flew him to Ashburton Aerodrome outside Christchurch in Jake's own Cessna 172.

Jake had not been home or talked to anyone from home since.

After cleaning up the urine from the condom incident (Jake still shuddered every time he thought of that terrifying moment when he'd looked down and saw his penis grotesquely swollen), and washing up thoroughly, Jake went back into the bedroom and put on a pair of sweat pants and a cotton pull-over shirt. Leaving the bedroom like it was for the moment, he walked through the hallway, through the entertainment room (which was cluttered with more wine bottles, empty glasses, overflowing ashtrays, and one condom wrapper), and into the kitchen. The kitchen was actually in pretty good shape. He'd done the dishes and wiped everything down after dinner last night, before he drank too much to not worry about it.

He rinsed out the pot and the filter holder of his automatic coffee maker and then quickly set it up to brew a half a pot of Toraja Arabica — an exclusive coffee variety that was expensive and hard-to-find in the United States, but relatively common (though still expensive) in New Zealand due to its close proximity to Indonesia, where the beans were grown. When the first drips of coffee began to fall into the pot, when the first of the wonderful aroma reached his nose, Jake walked over to the mahogany cabinet over the sink and removed a large water glass. He filled it with water from the tap and drank it down without removing the glass from his lips. The well water that supplied the sink was naturally cold and naturally pure — hands down the best tap water he'd ever had in his life. This was a good thing since he tended to drink a lot of it in the mornings in order to re-hydrate himself.

He filled his glass again and used the water to wash down fifteen hundred milligrams of Tylenol and a multi-vitamin that was heavy on B-12 and C. He drank one more glass for good measure and the trudged into the living room and sat down in his favorite chair to wait for the coffee to finish. While he was waiting, he dozed off again — not an uncommon occurrence during this part of his morning routine.

He awoke forty-five minutes later, feeling a little better. The headache had faded to a dull, almost comforting throb and most of the grogginess was gone. He got up and returned to the kitchen where he poured a large mug of coffee which he carried out the side door, down a small flight of steps, and across a concrete walkway to his patio. The patio was a stamped concrete slab covered by an aluminum overhang. On the deck he had an eight-person hot tub, a wet bar, a propane fired barbeque, and a set of custom made granite patio furniture.

He sat down at the table, facing toward the view of the harbor it enjoyed. A brisk, pleasant breeze was blowing up the hills from the sea, bringing the smell of salt, fish, and seaweed to him. He could see a couple of sailboats, half a dozen fishing boats, and a large container ship with Indonesian markings on it out in the harbor. From all around him came the sounds of birds chirping, trees rustling in the breeze, and squirrels chattering and playing. He sipped his coffee slowly, unthinkingly, just looking out at the boats on the water and the sparse vehicular traffic on the streets of Lyttelton.

After finishing the first cup of coffee, he went back inside long enough to pour another. Then it was right back to his patio, right back to the pleasing sameness of the view and the brisk sea breeze. Finally, with 180 milligrams of caffeine surging through his system, he felt reasonably alert and almost human. He could now officially start his day.

He went back to the kitchen and turned on the thirty-six inch television set that was mounted on the wall above the dishwasher. The TV was tuned to CNN, as was every television in the house, fed by a large satellite receiver dish mounted behind his guest quarters and pointed to the northeast. Operation Desert Shield, the build-up of troops and equipment in Saudi Arabia, had become Operation Desert Storm, the war to liberate Kuwait, thirteen days before. Jake had been enthralled with CNN's coverage of the conflict ever since day one, when he'd stayed up all night long watching the footage of anti-aircraft fire and explosions in Baghdad, of reporters scrambling for cover in Riyadh as SCUD missiles came flying in.

The first ground action of the war had started yesterday when Iraqi infantry and tank squadrons pushed across the border and occupied the Saudi town of Khafji. When Jake had stopped watching the coverage yesterday (in order to get ready for his dinner-date with Kate), the fighting between the occupying Iraqi forces and the US Marines and Saudi Defense Forces had been reported as intense. It was worried that if the Iraqis reinforced their position on the Saudi side of the border, they would have a foothold which they could use to launch attacks on nearby Saudi oil fields.

Now, at 11:00 AM, New Zealand time, it was three o'clock in the morning in the war zone. Though American, British, and French planes were undoubtedly pounding the shit out of the Iraqis in Iraq and Kuwait, nothing current was being reported at the moment. Still, it was just entering prime time hours on the east coast of the United States (although it was still yesterday there) so the nightly updates were being presented for the enjoyment of the people during their dinner hour.

Jake watched the coverage as he made his breakfast. He cut up a small onion and grated some cheese. He then cooked a quarter pound or so of the fresh pork sausage he'd bought a few days before at a farmer's market he'd discovered near Ashburton. After draining the sausage, he dumped it into a small bowl and set it aside. He then scrambled three of the farm fresh eggs he'd bought at the same market and added them to the sausage. From the refrigerator he opened a zip-lock bag and removed two flour tortillas, part of a batch he'd made himself about a week ago. He had been forced to learn to make his own since tortillas were not something readily available in any New Zealand market. He heated the tortillas on the stove until they were soft and pliable and then put even amounts of the egg and meat mixture into each one. He sprinkled on the cheese and then poured some of the salsa he'd made (salsa was not generally available in New Zealand either) over the mixture. He rolled his constructions up, almost like he was rolling a joint, and the result was two fairly decent sized breakfast burritos.

He poured a large glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice into a glass and then ate at the kitchen table, continuing to watch the latest news from Iraq even though he had pretty much been caught up by this point and the newscasters were starting to repeat themselves.

The fighting in Khafji was still going on and the Iraqi troops were still there. Air strikes were being conducted around the clock but US and Saudi troops had been unable to force them to retreat as of sunset. It was no longer feared, however, that the Iraqis were going to use Khafji as a staging point for a larger incursion into Saudi territory. Instead, it was starting to look like nothing more than a nuisance raid. No further Iraqi troops had crossed the border.

Jake continued to watch as he smoked his first cigarette of the day. Once the dizziness from this fresh blast of nicotine faded away, he got up and went about the task of cleaning his house. Though he had a maid that came in once a week, she only did the detail work like dusting, washing windows, scrubbing sinks and toilets, and vacuuming. The daily tasks like cleaning, doing the dishes, taking out the garbage, and doing the laundry, Jake did himself. He found these chores somewhat of a novelty after so many years of having someone else do them for him.

It took him the better part of two hours to gather all the dishes and clean them, to get the laundry done, to sweep the floors, to mop the kitchen, to wipe down all the counters, to make his bed, to take out the garbage. Through it all, he turned the television on in whatever room he happened to be in and he kept one eye and one ear on the coverage of the war in case something new happened. Nothing new did happen, not even a SCUD attack on Saudi Arabia or Israel, not even a defecting Iraqi pilot heading for Iran.

Jake smoked another cigarette, this one out on his deck. When he finished it, he went back inside and into his master bedroom (which was now neat and fresh smelling since he'd opened the windows). He stripped off his sweats and t-shirt and tossed them into the laundry basket. He then shaved, brushed his teeth, and took a long, hot shower. When he was finished, he dressed in blue jeans, a button-up short-sleeved denim shirt, and a pair of Nike tennis shoes. He donned his San Francisco Giants baseball cap and his sunglass and then headed out of the house, not bothering to lock it behind him. His Harley was sitting in its accustomed place, looking no worse the wear for its unrecalled ride home last night, but he ignored it. Instead, he stepped into the Toyota four-wheel drive pick-up he'd bought his second day in New Zealand and headed down the summit road to Lyttelton.

He parked in front of the post office and went inside. Elisa was on duty behind the counter. She was a late-twenties blonde, a little on the plump side, but not unattractive to Jake's eyes. He had flirted with her shamelessly ever since initially establishing his post office box, but had never done anything more than that with her. He was honest enough to admit to himself that it was because she elected not to take their relationship any further. She was married to a first-mate on one of the fishing boats and took her fidelity seriously.

"How's it going, Jake?" she asked as he walked up to the counter.

"It's going just the way I like it," he told her. "Another beautiful day and I get to look at a beautiful lady."

She giggled as she removed her keys from a drawer. "You say that to all the women, don't you?"

"Just the beautiful ones," he assured her.

She opened his mailbox and removed a fairly impressive pile of envelopes from it. "Quite the build-up here," she said. "You haven't picked up your mail in a few days, have you?"

"There's never anything I want to read in it," he said.

"A rich celebrity like you?" she asked. "Ignoring your mail?"

He shrugged and gave her a smile. "It just reminds me that there's a world out there," he said.

She looked at him in wonder as he left the office and headed back to his truck. Most of the people of Lyttelton dreamed of visiting some other place in the world. Jake, who had the world at his fingertips, seemed to only want to stay here, spending his time drinking in their depressing bars and having sex with their notorious barflies. Go figure.

Jake glanced at the envelopes when he got back to his truck. Several were fan letters from New Zealand residents who had managed to beg or borrow his address. He would read them later, when he had a chance, and would maybe even answer a few. Four of the envelopes were bills — one from the propane service, one from the electrical service, one from the waste management company, and one from the mail order company he got his movies from. These, he would put unopened in a large envelope when he got home and send them to Jill in Heritage the next time he came to the post office. She would, in turn, pay them out of his accounts.

The rest of the envelopes in the pile were all personal correspondence. There were two letters from Pauline, one from his parents, and one from Nerdly. He didn't open any of them. When he got home, he would deposit onto a pile in his desk drawer that was made up of similarly unopened letters. He had no desire to read about anything that was going on at home.

He started the truck and drove down to the waterfront, stopping in front of the fishmonger shop owned by Elizabeth Crawford. He went inside to find Elizabeth and Kate, both in jeans with blood stained aprons around their waists, hard at work. Elizabeth was working the counter. Kate was putting some fresh squid on ice just behind her. Both sets of eyes lit up when he entered.

"Jake," Elizabeth greeted, giving him a saucy smile. "Didn't expect to see you until at least one o'clock today. Katie told me you were pretty crocked last night."

"I'm pretty crocked every night," Jake replied, telling her nothing she didn't already know. "You can't keep a good man down."

"He is a good man," Kate said with a smile of her own. "But I must say, he stayed down for quite a stretch last night."

"Hush yourself, little missy," Elizabeth told her daughter. "You don't have to flaunt it, you know."

"The hell I don't," Kate said indignantly.

Elizabeth gave her a motherly glare for a moment and then turned back to Jake. "Ah well," she said with a shrug. "At least it's my turn next, isn't it, Jake?"

"That would only be fair," Jake agreed. In truth, he found sex with the elder Crawford woman more physically enjoyable than with Kate. Though Kate was smoother, firmer, and prettier, Elizabeth was experienced. She knew how to move and when, what to suck and why, and how to manipulate certain muscles in such a way that they brought tremendous tactile stimulation to whatever part of his anatomy they were gripping.

"How about tonight?" Elizabeth asked hopefully. "Are you going to come down to the Lazy Eye?"

"Afraid not," he said. "I have something else going tonight. A business dinner, if you know what I mean."

"Ahh," Elizabeth said with a grin. She certainly knew what he meant. "I see."

"A business dinner?" said Kate. She certainly did not know what he meant, and probably wouldn't be happy about it if she did.

Jake had no intention of enlightening her. Neither would her mother, he was sure. "Yes," he told Kate. "Someone from the bank where I keep my New Zealand accounts. We need to go over some of the latest exchange rate fluctuations."

"Ahh, I see," Kate said.

"Fluctuations," Elizabeth said with a little chuckle. "That's rich."

"So anyway," Jake said. "I was thinking that sushi and sashimi would be the thing to serve. What do you got for me?"

Both women made a sour face. "It's beyond me how anyone could eat raw fish," Elizabeth said, "but I think we can do business. We have some bluefin tuna and some salmon that just came off the boats yesterday."

"Beautiful," Jake said. "How about Marlin?"

"I have some filets in the freezer out back," she said.

"I'll pass on the frozen," Jake said regretfully. "I'll take half a kilo of the bluefin and the salmon though. Oh, and how about a kilo of that squid? I'll use some of it tonight and then cook up the rest tomorrow night."

"You got it," Elizabeth said, pulling out one of her knives.

Jake went out to his truck to retrieve the ice chest he carried for such errands. By the time he returned, Elizabeth had his order cut and packaged in plastic bags. While Kate rang him up at the register, Elizabeth filled the bottom of the ice chest with crushed ice, put the packages on top of it, and then added another layer of ice on top.

He bid farewell to the two fishmongers and carried his ice chest back to this truck. A short drive brought him to the Lyttelton road tunnel that led under the Port Hills. Jake entered the tunnel. 1.9 kilometers, or, just over a mile, later, he emerged from the other end and was in the city of Christchurch. The streets here were a bit more crowded with traffic. He wound his way from the tunnel to the southern portion of the city, entering a neighborhood where large numbers of Japanese — a sizable minority group in Christchurch — made their homes. Here, he parallel parked his truck on a small side-street and walked half a block to the small market owned by Kenjiro and Miliko Nishimura, native Japanese who had lived in New Zealand for the past twenty-two years and had run Nishimura Market for the past eighteen.

The middle-aged couple spoke heavily accented but understandable English. They greeted Jake warmly when he entered, as did many of the Japanese customers who were wandering the aisles, picking out items that were generally not for sale in traditional New Zealand markets. Jake returned their greetings and spent a few moments talking to Kenjiro and Miliko's twenty-year old daughter, who worked part-time in the store. Hatsumi — called Hattie by everyone but her parents — had been born and raised in Christchurch and was currently a student at The University of Canterbury, where she was working on her undergraduate degree prior to applying for the School of Law there. She was short and petite, with large, doe-like eyes, small breasts, and a gorgeous set of legs. She had visited Jake's house on several occasions since he'd discovered the market — a fact her parents and the rest of the Japanese community knew nothing about.

"When can I come over for dinner again?" she whispered to Jake as she helped him pick out seaweed wraps, rice vinegar, sake, and wasabi for his meal tonight.

"How about Saturday night?" Jake said, mentally checking his calendar and finding an opening on that evening. Hattie was fun. She was relatively new to the whole sexuality thing, but a quick and inquisitive study. Nor did she have that annoying Christian morality issue to get in the way of some of the more interesting aspects of getting it on.

"I'll be there," she said. "Seven o'clock again?"

"Perfect," Jake assured her. "What should I make for dinner? Do you want steak again?"

She smiled. "Yes," she said. "You know how much I love your meat."

"It's all in the seasoning," Jake told her. "All in the seasoning."