On the way to Egypt

On the way to Egypt.     By Wade Gilbert

“I’m only tellin’ ya this Lad 'cos you’re here and you’re askin’. If ya wana hear some more yarns from a crazy old man’s travelin' days, then I'll tell ya. Fill that glass and I'll fill ya head” Pap jibes, ”From back when I didn’t use my head too good but I had the heart of a lion,” he says and mumbling softly continues, "and the balls to match," he chuckles, starts coughing and rummaging deep into a pocket for his hankey.

There is blood on his lip. I look away. We all know he’s dying, but he hasn’t said. Paps doesn’t want anyone's pity. He’s too proud. It puts a lump in my throat, but I swallow hard and pretend not to notice.

He likes to tell his stories and I love hearing them. So we sit out on the sun porch for hours. Paps smoking on his pipe, sipping his homemade whiskey and swearing it all be as 'True as the gospel,

Lad, every last word," through a cheeky grin. Teeth too white to be real. His silver hair-do seemed to slide all over his sunbaked dome like a living thing trying to hang on. His huge pink hands with fingers like sausages dwarfing anything in his grasp. He'd said he'd earned those calloused mits from a lifetime of hard graft, having several yarns about the missing pinky, and all of them were worth a second listen.

Paps had been a boxer, a soldier, a merchant seaman and a notorious gambler in his heyday. He'd drilled for oil and panned for gold, neither of which he'd found much of. And he'd lived a hundred and nine lives if he'd lived a dozen. I don't really know what he meant by that, but I was pretty sure it was a lot. He never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn, old Paps.

If we get too loud Nan yells out, giving us the ‘what for’ and we'd hold our bellies and stifle fits of laughter. His rosy face shone in the afternoon sun.

“Better not upset Nan, or she’ll be on us with the yard broom,” he warns mockingly. They’ve been together forever. "Since Adam was a cowboy," Paps would say. They've been living in this old farmhouse at the end of the road for as long as I can remember and nothing much has changed since then.

“Tell me some more about Egypt Paps,” I prompt, knowing how much he loves to reminisce. I revel in his reliving.

He leans back in his old chair, thinks a moment and grins. “Ok Lad,” he says…

‘’Way way back, when time first began and not a moment sooner,’’ he begins. That’s how he always starts all his stories, ‘’When ships were made of wood and men were made of steel"...

He pauses and scratches his chin.

“Now if I be tellin’ ya this, it's for your thinkin’ and not for your doin’, you hear it Son,” he winks, "'Cos it’s all changed now. These days you can’t get away with nothin’, cameras everywhere and whatnot. You’d be sleepin’ in the stripey room quick- as- a-flash.”

 That’s what Paps calls jail, ‘The stripey room’ and from what I've been told, Pap’s has done a few nights in the stripey room.

“I’d been workin’ for a couple of months, scrubbin’ dishes and what-not at a Jewish holiday resort down on the Sea of Galilee. But I was over it, and when a friendly English bloke called Darren F, or Skinny Dee as I came to call him, suggested we head for Dahab, in the Sinai Desert, I thought hell yea and couldn’t pack up my shit quick enough. We hit the road to Eilat at sparrow’s fart, and got in that afternoon, an hour before dark. It was a bustling we town on the southern tip of Israel, with a big marina, and while we sullied our insatiable appetites we learned from another traveller, how to make an easy buck.” He pauses again, knowing I’m hanging, and fixes himself another drink. I pass him my glass and he fixes me one too. I can see he’s just getting warmed up. “ Come on Paps”, I say, “Spill the beans.”

The old man cackles, and with drink in hand, flops back into his tattered porch recliner.  Nan keeps telling him to throw it out, but I doubt he ever will.

“Well,” he continues finally, “We hear from this kid that the Sinai, being part of Egypt, is a bit short of grog. You can buy it cheap here and it’s worth tenfold on the other side if you can get it across the border. Skinny Dee paled at the idea of smuggling contraband, but he owed me some money and a favour or two, and eventually, with a few voddies under our belts, I got ‘im on board and told him the plan.

It's all about the decoy, I tell him, and keepin’ your shit together Dee. All they do if they find the contraband is confiscate it, and we lose a bit of coin, big deal. Dee shudders, shaking his head in disbelief and I tell ‘im how we’re gonna play it…”

‘Dinner’s in half an hour’ Nan calls from the kitchen.

 “Yea,” we both reply in unison. ‘Better get on with it Pap’, I tease.

“So’s that night we buy nine bottles of the nastiest vodka you ever tasted, pure damn goat’s piss, and drink one of them anyway. It was some badass stuff, burned all the way down like rocket fuel.

The next morning we set about hiding six of the bottles amongst our gear and carried two out in front as the decoy. Border crossings are a harrowing affair at the best of times, but this one wasn’t too scary, just a small guard house on the side of the dusty road leading outa town.”

He starts another coughing fit, farts and blames the cat he calls 'That fat lump of fur. I grin, blush, and don’t know where to look to hide my embassisment. Paps doesn’t notice and continues.

 “As we approached the barred window at the border post, a beat-up Peugeot 404 slid to a halt behind us, and three tall blonds climbed out. And I don’t have to tell you, my lad, more tits and ass than ya could poke a stick at!

“Paps!” I say in mock disgust.

“Anyways, that was perfect timing. Those creepy old Arabs just love givin’ pretty girls the run-around, especially Yanks. The man at the window begins to grin. His day was gettin’ better. He looks at our shopping bags holding the vodka as we approach and states loudly that we can’t bring alcohol into the Kingdom of Egypt. Praise Allah. Then removes it hastily from our possession, takes our entry fee, stamps our passports and calls ‘Next’.

Sweet! We were through, and still six bottles up. By then it was after ten and getting hot, so we sat on the bench under a tree and waited for a taxi.”

“What happened then Paps,” I chased.

“Across the road, those poor girls were getting grilled as the two sleazy Arabs rifled through their laundry and personal items. I couldn’t see what was goin’ on, but there were tears, some money changing hands, and eventually they joined us under the tree.

Wow, what a hoot, I joked. What the hell was all that about?

"The bastard confiscated my contraceptive pills’’ one of the girls grumbles, still sniffing.

“Was she a cutie Pap?” I ask.

“Cuter than a speckled pup”, Grandpa winks. I see a glint in his eye as he looks away.

“Come on, come on, so what happens next Pap?” I plead.

“Well son, let’s just say we didn’t make no money on that Vodka and Dahab sure was a good place to party.”

“And the Girl?  C'mon Paps, I know your stories, there’s always a girl.”

Nan is standing in the doorway, tappin’ the wooden spoon on her hand, trying to look cross. But it’s unconvincing, she’s far too lovable for that. He hesitates, stands up and looks lovingly into his wife’s eyes. She tucks the spoon into her apron and ties back her hair as he takes hold of her hands

“I done what any good man woulda done, I wrapped her up, packed her up, brung ‘er home and married ‘er Lad.” he states proudly, and right there, on that old porch, in the orange evening light, they kissed like movie stars in an old black and white film.

“Nice one Paps,” I whisper.