Dan has been robbed -by one of his colleagues as he slept. Only an hater of dan would do such a thing, and there is an obvious candidate: Darryl, the boyfriend (or whatever) of one of the girls he was sharing a bed with the night before. Dan's put the word out that he'll get the police involved unless the money's returned, pronto, and that the circumstantial evidence doesn't look good for Darryl.
Darryl gets wind of this and, furious, goes over to confront Dan, forcing Dan to cut short a call to the UK....
O to the M to the G!1
What could possibly happen next? Read on....
So I'm sat there on the floor, and Darryl is standing over me
LOOMING over me
And I look up into his eyes
RIGHT into his eyes2
And I see the look of a man who has been accused of something he didn't do
I've seen that look a few times; sometimes on my own face in the mirror
The pupils are dilated, the gaze is fixed and steady
I knew instantly he didn't do it
And that, dear reader, was the whole point of the exercise
I was never going to call the police
I'm not an idiot -i know the police are going to have scant regard for a crime that has no witnesses and no recoverable evidence (money being the most disposable commodity in the world)
And even if they did somehow pursue it -would I really want to put everyone at the hostel though the tedium of giving statements, testimony etc
For $200?
Please
No, I just needed to be sure it wasn't darryl
I was 80-90% sure -but I didn't know him all that well
I get to know people through either smoking or drinking (or both)
Darryl does neither
He's a laconic character too
But we were slowly developing a friendship -i'd give him free food at the cafe bar when he was skint; we'd talk about (american) football, that sort of thing
So I really hoped it wasn't him -in fact, I was almost certain it wasn't
But I had to be sure
So I had to make him think I was going to shop him
And the only way to do that was to go through shannon, make HER believe I was going to shop him
I had to force the confrontation
And it wasn't him
The only problem is, I've kind of overplayed my hand
I've been a bit TOO convincing
Darryl looks ready to kill me
Hmm
It's a bit of a sticky situation, to say the least....
So what I do first is get (slowly) to my feet
Then I tell darryl I'm not going to call the cops on him
That it was never my intention to call the cops ON HIM, just call the cops
He tells me that's what shannon told him
I told him shannon had got the wrong end of the stick3
(all the while i'm talking to him i'm, slowly making my way over to the cafe bar)
He produces his cell phone and asks me to explain the text message that shannon's sent him
(the gist of which is that i'm calling the cops on him; she thought she knew him but now she doesn't etc)
All I can do is reiterate that i'm NOT calling the cops on him
He asks me to explain the text message
All I can say is “I didn't write it, shannon did”
By now we are in the cafe bar
My friends are there, including coco4, and I feel safer right away
But as i'm talking to darryl, I walk around the cafe bar counter, so there is an obstacle between us
(for psychological reasons rather than defensive ones)
by this time shannon is on the scene
and harold, davey and a bunch of other people
It all gets quite heated -a lot of people have had very little sleep, everyone has a different version of what's going on
I start to lose it because no one is letting me finish my sentences
Eventually harold says we have to take it outside because it looks bad in front of the guests
So we do, but shannon insists darryl stays inside with her (darryl is anyway working)
Me, coco, davey, harold, steve and a couple of other guys stand in front of the hostel, smoking and discussing further
I can see darryl at the front desk, the window is open -he's listening to us
so I say loudly, several times, for his benefit, how I was never calling the police ON HIM; I'm calling the police because i've been robbed and i'm not going to let it go -i'm not going to let someone fuck with me and get away with it5
Eventually steve says the first sensible thing anyone's said to me all day: “dude, you've had no sleep, you're emotional. It's chris's last night6 -go out enjoy yourself, forget about all this for tonight.”
He's right
I go have a shower, freshen up, get changed.
But there's something I have to do before going downtown
I find darryl and shannon outside the the staff basement; they've been arguing
I ask them to take a walk around the block with me
I explain to them both that I was never going to call the police, that I just needed to be sure it wasn't darryl, to convince darryl that I was going to do it, I had to convince shannon etc
I apologise to them for the mind games -but they were a necessary evil
The conversation ends on a friendly note -me and darryl shake hands7
Shannon says the second sensible thing i've heard all day: “let's talk about this more tomorrow -when we've all had some sleep!”
But before they go, I ask them not to tell anybody that calling the police was a bluff
Because if darryl didn't do it, I still need to smoke out the person who did
The police threat had two objectives (three actually8): the first was to clear darryl as a suspect
The second was to mindgame the real culprit
Anyone who steals from someone as they sleep -someone incapacitated by drink- is a coward
And cowards, by their nature, get nervous
So I had to kick up as big a fuss as I could, shout about calling the police, lose my shit basically
All the time when darryl was confronting me, and everyone was sticking their oar in, I had one eye keeping a look out for anyone acting weird, nervous, flighty
Guilty, in other words
And one person stuck out like a sore thumb
Who was this person?
Find out next time!
TO BE CONTINUED....
1I've been bitten by a black dog; black man wants to kick my ass -it's naked prejudice I tells ya!
2A very difficult thing to do. It's hard to look someone right in the eye at the best of times, let alone when they are about to kick your skinny little ass.
3This is a white lie. While I might have never explicitly said I was going to call the cops “on” darryl, this is what I led Shannon to believe, by implication. But given the circumstances, who's counting white lies?
4Coco is my brother. He says that to me all the time, that I am his “big brother”. (And rachel is his “little sister”). That's serious shit in african culture. He's told me many times that if anyone tries to fuck with me (or Rachel) he will fuck them up. He means it too.
5Even though I knew I was never going to call the police, it was still important that everyone thought I was going to, for reasons that will become clear.
6The first of many “last nights”. The douchebag's still here tho!
7There's a nice (and amusing) coda to this part of the story. Darryl and I are friends now. You can't go through an experience like that with someone without learning their measure. I found out darryl is a christian, a good christian, sticks to his principles (for example, he LOVES texas hold em -he's a texan- but doesn't ever play in our poker night because it's against his beliefs to gamble), studies his bible. I also found out that he is ex-special forces. Ex-Homeland Security (he showed me his old ID!) He's black belt in two different martial arts; as well as the hostel job he's an instructor at one of the top martial arts schools in the country.
So if push HAD come to shove, he could've crippled me with his little finger... nail. Ah ha ha ha ha ha.
8The third objective was to send out a message to staff that if you fuck with my stuff I will kick up a shitstorm. I thought this would be enough to make people think twice. Wrong: after my trip to england in the new year, I came back to the hostel and found all my dogwalking gear had disappeared! Old shitty clothes, true, but still....
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