A SCROLL OF HONOUR
While I worked and lived in Saudi Arabia I received a special certificate that I treasure. As you all know I’m known, affectionately, just about everywhere as ‘Brian, the utter asshole.’
Tomorrow, or one day soon, I’ll begin posting excerpts from my journal that you will find utterly dumbfounding, because they show in a frank way how I earned the appellation. But let me start at the beginning.
In Saudi Arabia during the sixties and seventies, I set up the communication system that allowed the Royal Palace to have instant communication with the prison for pederasts and the supply train of young boys and concubines. Among my many accomplishments while dealing with the royal household, I met and became fast friends with Osama bin Laden who was also trying to give them the business. This has nothing to do with this story but it illustrates how I quickly I make new friends when I move on to new career opportunities.
In Riyadh, the people I had business dealings with, Bell Telephone executives, Royal Princes, mullahs running the administration of King Faud, etc., quickly slipped into the habit of referring to me as ‘half-assed Wales’. They were speaking Arabic, of course, but I was picking up the language quickly, and whenever the sobriquet was uttered, I would reply in a jesting tone, suggesting they were the spawn of an Egyptian whore and a rabid dog. It was all in good fun, of course, and it never got beyond playful slaps on the buttocks with the flat side of the blade, and kicks and punches in the groin area with a tassellated foot.
But one day in my Buzhkazi Court, my life changed completely. On a Buzhkazi court, usually the size of football field, teams of horsemen with polo sticks kick around the headless body of an executed criminal that has usually been soaked in water all night to make the hide tough. But owing to size restrictions, my gym had to serve as my Buzhkazi court and players (usually just two of us playing on foot) knocked around just the head of an executed criminal.
On this day my opponent was Prince Abdul Abubal Amir, one of the Desert Kingdom’s five thousand princes, and our game consisted of kicking around the head of a communications equipment supplier who had foolishly insisted one being paid. (You just DON’T do that here when you are supplying the Royal Kingdom with equipment or services of any kind!)
After our game (I won by playing a tight game), we relaxed in my gym’s reception area. Arabs don’t drink, at least not in public, but this night, Prince Abdul, got roaring drunk on an experimental home-brew I was developing at the time (an early version of Ducksplatt del Pantherpiss). I kept my consumption moderate, as usual, but in his inebriated state Abdul became quite funny and gave voluble expression to his suggestion that I had graduated from half-assed to FULL ASSHOLE status! I had been hoping for such a change in status ever since arriving, because elsewhere before and after working in Saudi Arabia, my appellation had always been in more fulsome terms.
I knew he was serious and not just buttering me up, when he pulled out from within his robes, a folded scroll tied with a yellow ribbon. Beaming, he unrolled it for me. The elaborate scroll was in gold-embossed Arabic, but as noted above, I had been studying the language and could read and understand much of it. Everything I had hoped for was on the scroll! Not only was my status as FULL asshole acknowledged but, in addition, I was henceforth to be known as Wales, LORD Asshole!
It was at this moment of high emotion, I asked the Prince to accompany me to my wife’s quarters so that he might in person relay to her the good news. After introductions, I excused myself for a moment as I felt a bit tired after the game of Buzhkazi and felt a few minutes lying down was in order. I left the Prince with my darling wife, feeling she was safe and in good hands.
Well, an hour later I returned and I understood what the word betrayal means. The Prince and my wife were on a settee and he had a hand over hers while they were deep in conversation. In Arab countries and especially in Saudi Arabia, an Arab speaking privately with a married woman, not his wife whether veiled or not, in such a setting is as much as asking her to commit adultery with him.
I have a placid disposition but when I surveyed the scene, I confess my normal, calm demeanour deserted me for a moment. I drew myself to my full 6’ 2” height, threw down my glove, and facing Prince Abdul, said, “Sir! I suspect your intentions are not honourable! I demand you meet me in the jousting pit at 6.00 AM, tomorrow, for a fight to the death, which contest will decide who is the better man!!!!”
Of course, I have a Buzhkazi Court (a house-sized one) but a jousting pit is not something I can conjure up, overnight. And my wife, jabbing and blabbering away as usual, interjected,
“But Brian, we don’t have a jousting pit!” Furious, I turned to her and cut her off with a thunderous look. I said, “ENOUGH Woman! Go to your room!” I would deal with this in my own manner.
When I turned again to Prince Abdul, to my astonishment he had disappeared! Despite his flowing robes and inebriated state he had managed to escape my presence in the second or two I had turned away from him to reprimand my wife. Arabs can sure move fast when caught in a compromising situation by a real man!
But it was clear I could no longer remain in Saudi Arabia. I had challenged a royal prince to a duel, but he had cowardly run away without accepting. In such a situation, the only honourable thing for the Arab to do, royal blood or not, is to have his opponent’s neck slit within 24 hours by a denizen of Riyadh’s underworld.
As it happened, that night my friend Osama bin Laden was in charge of a camel train departing for Afghanistan. My wife and I hitched a ride as far as Riyadh’s International Airport where we caught a plane for Spain. In our hasty departure, we had time enough to pick up only our papers, passports, and the day’s cash receipts of the communication company I worked for. But I also had the embossed scroll that Prince Abdul had presented me! I will treasure it as long as I live. It now hangs in the place of honour over my desk in my Pata de Gallina office.
1 Comment
Close this windowThe 'Compromising position' was in your mind ONLY Lyin' Brian. Your wife was having FUN playing charades at our family get together (Fun is a word you do not understand I know - it is called enjoying oneself and your wife was very good at it when allowed!).
Further, to keep the record straight, you were not being sought for "Exploding" (now THERE is a word I understand well!!), but because you tried to blackmail the family for US $250,000 in a law suit!! You could not WIN of course, (we would never allow our courts to agree to such a thing) so your claims in other places that you got this money are totally untrue! I think the wine you drink affects your memory somewhat Lyin' Brian and you write what you would LIKE to have happened not what DID happen.
The family send their regards and are happy to know where you are now living. Some will try to get over to see you real soon.
9:34 AM
FIDEL, THE IMPOSTER REVEALED !!!!!
Readers will remember in an earlier post that the Police Chief and I had put a tracer on Fidel Mendoza's scurrilous e-mail to people in my stolen address book that had derided my measured response to my wife's drunken habits.
These, you will recall, were her habit of peeing all over the house, ruining my meals by letting them cook unattended for hours, and then having the audacity to announce with a slurred (ie drunken) tongue that the charred, thoroughly blackened ox or suckling pig that had been turning endlessly on my hotel-sized barbecue was ready to be served!! This after I'd been out ALL DAY working hard drumming up business for my new Ducado del Pantherpiss fine wine!!! Moreover, to add to my understandable fury, her announcement of the ruined meal was often as much as five minutes late!!!!!! Like all well-organized Englishmen, I had strict orders that my evening meal was always to be served at a precise time, in my case, 5:47:38 local time!!! Can you believe it!!!!! and why I'm going to divorce her!!!!!!!!!
Well, I'm pleased to announce that I have found out who Fidel Mendoza, the IMPOSTER is, or rather I should say, are. It turns out that "Fidel" are two charter members of a Dominican Secret Society, EX DOLO SPHINCTER, whose mission is to rid the Dominican Republic of pond-scum prevaricators, scofflaws, cheats, liars, deadbeats, cruel slumlords, bathtub ginners, demeanors, too-clever-by-half 'super moderators' who delete innocent posts on www.lifeinthedr.com, and a host of other undesirable characteristics. In addition we learned that these two gentlemen, who call themselves, respectively, Fidel and Felix, are twin black Haitian brothers recently released from a crowded prison in the city of La Vega where they are alleged to have started a severe prison riot last March. The riot killed many inmates serving time for cheating, lying, fraud, etc., including three ex-pat Englishmen in prison for illegally selling moonshine, bathtub gin, etc., in bottles with fancy labels that concealed the deadly nature of their content. Anyway, Fidel and Felix, (both are 6', 8" tall, wear a #5 hat size, and drive a cream-colored Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG convertible) were released unconditionally, but will face trial for the prison riot allegations in the Fall of 2008.
Well, Ha Ha !! Do they think I'm intimidated by that information???
Lyin' Brian never dodged a problem in his 64 years, though I must admit getting out of Saudi Arabia just ahead of the Saudi Police with my cojones intact was a bit too close for comfort. (I had exploded after catching one of the Kingdoms' five-thousand princes in a compromising situation with my late wife.)
Anyway, as soon as I can find an honest, English-speaking lawyer (they're very scarce in the DR) I will sue these two Fidel's for defamation. Readers could help in my search for justice by contributing to my defense fund, SLBFP*, as Dominican lawyers (if I can find an honest one) charge a lot and will transfer from my pocket to their pocket and any money they find lying about my home or workplace. Please be generous: even US$100 bills would help.
*Save Lyin' Brian From Penury
Drink Responsibly
Drink Only Ours
Drink Ducksplatz del Pantherpiss
posted by Lyin' Brian at 12:27 PM on Aug 09 2006