Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales by Garry Kilworth

been instrumental in her death, as they say, by experimenting on my own brother. It was a terrible thing to do. I was determined that it should all come out at the trial. I would defend my brother with the truth. Poor Steve.
    While these thoughts were running through my head, Marcia walked into the room, saw me and waved. She crossed the floor and took a chair opposite me.
    ‘Something terrible’s happened,’ she said, as I sat there open-mouthed, staring at her. ‘Steve told me to stay in Manila, but I caught the next flight out, after his. There are policemen after him...’
    ‘I know,’ I said in a shaky voice, ‘they’ve arrested him. But what’s he done?’
    She told me then and though Steve was still in a lot of trouble, I heaved a sigh of relief. It was bad, but not as bad as I had first envisaged, thank God.
    They had been in a waterfront bar and Steve had had too much to drink. Marcia went to phone a taxi, to take them back to the hotel. When she returned, all hell had been let loose. It appeared that Steve had suddenly exploded in a fit of violence and had proceeded to lay about him without warning. The clientele of that particular bar were no angels themselves and dockers, fishermen and wharf rats began to pile into the mad gweilo with boots, fists and one or two knives. Steve retaliated in kind, stepping up his attacks on the opposition, cracking heads and throwing the smaller Filipinos around like dolls.
    Chairs were broken, jaws were broken, mirrors were broken. There were three unconscious bodies strewn about the floor and Steve was swinging a bottle at a fourth, just as Marcia entered. The barman had pulled out a revolver and was screaming to Marcia in Tagalog that she’d better get her boyfriend out of there, or he was going to blow the fucking madman’s head off. Marcia managed to bundle Steve through the door and into the taxi, whereupon he collapsed in moody silence in the corner of the cab. The next morning they heard that the police were after him, for drunkenness, assault, and various other criminal charges.
    ‘It’s my fault,’ I said to her. ‘I’ve got to help him.’
     
    Steve stood trial in Hong Kong, there being a Far East Area Criminal Court in Kowloon. His lawyer picked off the various charges against him, but he still ended up with ‘Assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm’. He was sentenced to a year in the Far East Central Jail, of which he would serve about eight months the lawyer said.
     
    So now I sit in my cell, with three other convicted felons for company. I couldn’t let Steve serve his sentence: I’m doing it in his place. While Steve was out on bail we extended our illegal activities to swapping psyches. I am now in Steve’s body and he in mine. It’s really only fair that I do his time for him, when the whole thing was my fault anyway. I’m tempted at this point to quote the words at the end of A Tale of Two Cities —‘It is a far better thing I do now. . . ’— but I can’t remember the whole bit.
    I’ve taken a year’s sabbatical from the university and Steve has taken my body to Thailand with Marcia for a long holiday. She was a little confused at first but doesn’t seem to mind, so long as I don’t care and Steve is happy. We’ve explained to her what we’ve done and have assured her that everything is fine with both of us.
    Jail is quite interesting really, if you haven’t got a lifetime to serve, but Far East prisons are tough places. You need to be a hard man to survive in here. Obviously Steve, the old Steve, would have been in his element, being an instinctive bully. His aggressive attitude and pugnacious personality would have ensured he was left well alone.
    However, Steve isn’t in here—I am. I am fairly timid by nature and in these circumstances a natural victim. I doubt I could survive on my own. The oriental thugs in here would destroy a mild gweilo like me in very little time at all, these Chinese triads and