shane bolitho

Part III

It was at Varlaam that Toy had the bright-spark moment. The wind whipped in and around our group-hug, snuffing ignition attempt after ignition attempt and Nik wasted a dozen matches trying to get the joint lit. Obscenities muttered all round.
Then Toy suddenly piped up.
“Why not break the end off one of those matches and stick it in the business end of that number and strike the bloody thing on the matchbox? That’ll light it, I’d say.”
Nik was immediately on the same wave length, nodding furiously. “Yeah! Yeah! Oh! Yes!”
Marijuana, sulphurous toxins and ill-gotten vodka became the staple for the next God-knows-how-long.
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(more…)

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Part II

The story of the matches.
How we didn’t get caught I’ll never know. The focus of our hare-brained shoplifting sortie being food and liquor supplies, Chagas stood talking to the shopkeeper in the ex-State run grocery store.
“Aş… Ah… Dori nişte… Er… Tigara? Cigaretta? …Marlboro? Kent?”
Speaking the little Romanian he knew even more poorly than normal.
“Accepta… Ah… Dolari Americani?”
Buying cigarettes while we discreetly stuffed our pockets. And then a “diversionary tactic”. Or so we found out later. Meticulously planned and masterfully executed apparently.
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(more…)

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Part I

Four of us. Each clad in a rag-tag mish-mash of threadbare and stained second-hand clothes. Other odd and mysterious items of abandoned apparel found along the road. In a banged out old Czech-made station wagon. Barreling along at the head of a roiling smoke cloud like a steam train. Have to yell to be heard above the racket of the motor when she’s doing anything more than about twenty miles an hour. Strong petrol and exhaust smell inside and it’s too icy to have the windows down.
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