Living Room Of The Dead

Chapter One My ferry's at noon and I barely make it onboard. It's a lot more impressive than just any old ferry. But you wouldn't know it when it's not moving. Dirty red chipping paint covers a pockmarked hull. The lower deck is hardly visible down by the waterline. It has plenty of large windows, but they're grimy, salt-encrusted, and you can't see into them. The upper deck looks much the same. There isn't any visible outside deck, other than a short, flat triangle at the prow where there's an anchor and some ropes. It's a flimsy-looking thing and it bobs violently in the chop that beats against the pier. I've hardly crossed over the rolling gangplank before they shut the door and cast off. I wobble to the only remaining seat, the middle of a row of eight in second class, the lower deck. The first-class upper deck has been sold out for a month or more. It usually is on Friday. I squeeze my way past Hong Kong Chinese gamblers rubbing their sweaty palms together in anticipation of hitting the tables in Macau. The two squared and hard-looking middle-aged women on either side of the seat I'm headed for would move away if there were anywhere to go. As I step over one of their feet on my way to sit, they both turn away, to the meek-looking men sitting next to them. They mutter, but it's hard to speak softly in Cantonese. It's a loud language and doesn't lend itself to quiet conversation. I hear the word gwailo a few times. When you're a foreigner in Hong Kong you hear it all the time. It means "ghost person." At the moment it means me, which strikes me as funny because I'm feeling plenty alive. I take my seat and I'm laughing. It's hard to stop. Everyone in the row turns to look at me, then they look away. I'm just another crazy ghost person, a chee-seen gwailo, and there's no accounting for us. The ferry rocks and rolls slowly away from the dock, out into the frothy water of the world's most crowded harbor. It taxis onto its right-of-way, and around me everyone is looking a little sick from the motion. But no one is too concerned. We all know what's going to happen next. A few hundred yards out from the dock the jet engine roars to life. The ferry rises ten or more feet up on its foils and takes off with the same sort of scream and whine and acceleration that the other Boeing products do, the ones that fly through the air rather than over the water. I'm shoved into my seat by it and I close my eyes to enjoy the sensation. Once we're at speed it's a smooth ride, well above the waves, the thin metal foils cutting straight through the waves too fast to rock the boat. I close my eyes. I don't feel like reading. As always, I'm looking forward to a weekend in Macau. I go there at least once a month, sometimes twice. It's one of my favorite places. I'd live there if it wasn't for the hour-and-a-half commute each way to work and back. I might be the only person on the boat who isn't going there to gamble. I learned my lesson about a month after I moved to Hong Kong. I decided to sit down at a blackjack table at the casino at the Ferry Terminal. I found a seat, ordered a drink, and within a couple of hours of leisurely play I was up nearly four thousand Hong Kong dollars, about five hundred U.S. We were a surprisingly congenial group at the table. Most Hong Kong Chinese gamblers don't look relaxed. They don't look like they're having fun. They take it very seriously, like playing the stock market. But this group was different. I was the only gwailo at the table, but everyone was friendly and chatty, aStone, Eric is the author of 'Living Room Of The Dead ' with ISBN 9780765312976 and ISBN 0765312972.