He didn’t believe a word I said and thought I had contrived the story for some sinister purpose and he could get into deep trouble going along with me. If Adrian had any serious doubt about my intentions, he had to report it and it scared me now, it could turn in any direction.
One should understand the milieu, this was war, security was tight and all were suspect and everyone a dangerous double agent and once the intelligence got a whiff, they made your life miserable shaking you down for the ‘real truth’. I had seen Jordanians caught snooping, being led away for interrogation by army intelligence and handed over to Saudi secret police, disappearing forever.Even innocuous acts were reported.
An amateur astrologer from India, , working as an office assistant for another contractor, was caught scribbling on a paper notations and figures that nobody could understand .He was reported and grilled for hours by the secret agents, twisting his mind so incontrovertibly that he had to be put on the next flight home. This fool was casting a horoscope by calculating exactly what stood in future for the next two hundred years for some nut , when nobody would even dare to carry a piece of paper with a telephone number on it.This was going the way of the quasi-astrologer, exactly as Darren warned me when I had called him.
I was exasperated, Adrian was going over every aspect of my act, beseeching me: how is that..., why is that, and when, where, how.....are you sure….??????, his doubts were the same and his Irish brain couldn't fathom that somebody would flush half a million dollars ,whatever may the circumstances be and his questions were phrased and rephrased to the point that I gnashed my teeth and hissed,
“Yes , you irish idiot……I’m not sure at all, ….really I’m so unsure that’s the fuck I want to go back an’ look for myself . As for the second part, you’re a better judge of volumes, I’ll give you the dimension, factor in the average load of shit per person and you’ll be able to arrive at a decent figure. My guess is that the shit will be deep, just about lip level..now tell me, what’s wriggling past your arsehole?
He didn’t speak about it for the next two days but I could sense something remained unsaid. Then the dam broke, he was in regress, a devolution into the juvenile world of treasure and fantasy, a jason hunting for golden shit. Adrian wanted the money more than I did and over the two days had dreamt simultaneous dreams of what he would do with ‘his money’, like he would travel the world and render poems in secluded parks to those unfortunates whom poetry had passed by, making them less appreciative of human nature. Yea I said , try Bangladesh , they are dying to listen to your moping Gaelic poems.
