Surprise Melody Flintkote. Part Two
Copyright© 2019 by Old Man with a Pen
Chapter 8
Released ... with an ID on a neck strap ... I moved into the yard. Looking back at the gate I saw my cabbie arguing with the gate guard. He ... the driver ... saw me looking and waved a handful of bills at me.
I trotted back.
“Tip,” I said.
“You’re kidding,” said the guard. But he turned to the driver and explained. Big eyes ... sagging chin ... shock. He still tried to give the majority back.
Wasn’t having it. I knew ... that the change from a capitalist society to a Mao perceived communism was going to be rough. What I didn’t know was the price of buying a taxi license would soon exceed five million Hong Kong dollars ... even though there would be 18 thousand cabs in the city soon. A single cab could and did support an extended family.
That was in an unknown future.
My present was finding my yacht in this zoo.
Moving into the yard, I could see that repair and refit were “Small Potatoes” here. Building one-upmanship yachts was the bread and butter of this manufactory.
BIG ... really BIG ... expressions of conspicuous consumption abounded. I, who had stood next to an aircraft carrier, was impressed. Suddenly my pitiful 65 foot catamaran Basilisk, the boat I grew up on was likened to a one horse town as compared to New York City. City hell ... city block more like. And 100 foot Surprise wasn’t much bigger.
<You have that kind of money, Surprise.>
“Don’t tempt me,” I said.
<Why not, it’s what we do.>
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