BigBug
Chapter VIII

Finnegan’s Rainbow was indeed a great pub when Seamus owned it. He had a great time there but owning and running a pub in Amsterdam is not for the over sixties especially if one is fond of the drink. It is an incredibly hard 24/7 job. Seamus sold the pub and retired to enjoy Amsterdam. He loved the city. Now he had the time to visit all his favourite places especially the museums. With his Stad Pass and free tram and bus pass, he could enjoy Van Gogh the Dutch masters and the brown cafes at his carefree leisure without having to work day and night for the tax man. He was enjoying his retirement but this strange meteorite business and caring for Moon was eating up a lot of his spare leisure time. Seamus liked Marjolein the new owner of Finnegan’s a lot but she did not get along with Moon. She disliked him intensely, even on a good day and she did not want him in disrupting the pub quiz. Oh, why? Tell me why? We cannot. It is embarrassing. Seamus negotiated an agreement with Marjolein that she would let Moon in for the pub quiz. He would be isolated in his own one-man quiz team and Seamus was to guarantee payment for all his drinks and any damages if they arose. Moon was on probation. Marjolein reserved the right to cancel the agreement at any time and throw Moon out of the pub.

“Ah, he’s not that bad, Marjolein.”

“Yes, he is.”

“You have seen worse.”

“I have not.”

“He’s just an alternative guy. “

“An alternative? He’s an alternator on a runaway train sparking and screaming, screeching about the place. He is a runaway train that never stops. Tell me this. Why does he insist on using the ladies’ toilet? Why does he lock himself in the ladies’ loo?”

She was curious, Seamus could see, but Seamus would never ask a man why he preferred the ladies loo to the gents. Maybe Moon liked to, Seamus doesn’t know, well he does, but he doesn’t want to go into it. Moon thought he was squatting in the desert and the ladies loo was a Legionnaire sandbagged position and an improvised eco latrine. Shit and shoot. Mates tell you strange secrets when they are pissed. Moon said the ladies toilet in Finnegans is painted a weird shade of olive that makes his nose vibrate. It reminded him of a desert dust storm and that’s why he liked to hunker down there. Seamus thinks Marjolein secretly quite liked Moon but you never heard that from him. Seamus gave Marjolien his best smile.

“He’s waiting in the loo for his mammy to come and get him. He’s just a poor little orphan who was abandoned in the lady’s loo in Mulligan’s pub in Dublin.”

“And you can fuck off too. I had to put an outside lock on the ladies and have three spare keys cut and left behind the bar for the girls. Cost me more than fifty Euros. Fifty Euros,” she wailed, “how alternative is that?”

The Dutch can be very concerned about money or as Moon says, they wake up in the middle of the night to see if they have lost any sleep.

“Maybe he is not so bad. I expect underneath it all he is a good person.”

“Of course he is. Salt of the Earth is my old mate Moon.” This was a most unexpected reversal of opinion by Marjolein and she was not a young lady easy for the turning.

“What’s this about Moon finding some meteorite?” said Marjolein smiling sweetly.

“It may not be a meteorite. We are having it checked out.”

“I heard it could be worth money.” She sighed. She gasped. “A lot of money.”

“I doubt it. It may not even be a meteorite.” The signs, those hopeful portents of promise, indicated Moon might be in the queue to copulate and perhaps get a leg over Marjolein after all.

“That’s not what Jude says,” she whispered, “he says it is worth millions. Millions. I’d love to see it. I’d love to touch it.”

“Moon will bring it in tonight.” Seamus had ordered Moon not to do this. “You can take a look at it then I’m sure,” replied Seamus.

Moon had a definite chance there now, but Seamus wished Moon would stop claiming they had found a fortune. Good fortune can lead to a bad feeling in family, friends, and neighbours. A new novel, by Moon. Greedy Expectations. People are riddled with spite and jealousy and envy and just plain old-fashioned begrudgery. Seamus is conscious the last word in the previous sentence is not a proper noun but we Irish are experts in begrudgery and so we must be entitled to manipulate the Queen’s English as we write to fit in the national interest. The very idea someone could dig up a fortune in their garden makes people think strange things, like, he got it for nothing, so, so will I so, so there’s nothing wrong with me nicking it you lucky so and so. Seamus was more worried the Government might try and confiscate the meteorite. Seamus had not yet received back written legal advice about the rock from his lawyer about who owns a meteorite found in Holland. Also during the recent but intense research into meteorites Seamus had discovered that the meteorite world was peopled by all sorts of strange folk, some of whom would camp naked on your roof in a tornado if they thought one had a very rare meteorite and among the general population there were many people who would gladly cut one’s throat for a million Euros or two. The rock needed to be in a very safe place. It didn’t matter really it might turn out to be monetarily worthless now. If people believed it was worth millions regardless they had to protect the rock. Seamus would have to speak to Moon about security. Seamus resolved to ask his friend the lawyer Kraal to stash the meteorite in his safe. Earlier that morning Seamus went to help Marjolein in the bar. He recently sold the place to her and was doing transition work for her easing her into the mysteries of running an Irish pub in Amsterdam. The pub quiz was one event Seamus really enjoyed when he owned Finnegan’s. Today Seamus was helping Marjolein get the place ready for the pub quiz and he looked after the Heineken delivery. He arranged the tables made sure the snacks and sandwiches were ready. The beer delivery came. Seamus checked it and stacked it. He went into the kitchen and took the questions for that night's quiz out from the safe. When Marjolein went out on some business Seamus steamed open the quiz envelope and made a copy of the questions on the scanner. He e- mailed the questions to Moon. He put the questions back in the envelope gummed the flap and returned the envelope to the safe. This opening and reading other peoples private mail Seamus had learned from his mother who steamed open up any private letter she came across, read the contents, made notes for malice and to beef up her outrageous poison pen writing, and then resealed the letter. Mother was an expert in criminal correspondence. Her great ambition was to get a job in the Post Office sorting office. She justified this snooping by claiming it was for the greater good of society and she also had to protect her family and the all-Irish way. She was often wont to say, “.. and besides the things you find out in letters is nobody’s business….” Nosey parker parent stuff. Seamus was curious what rationale, what justification, the two BWD people, Dutch security agents, now sitting in the pub used when they spied on people. Ma’s motivation was simple. She was just very nosey. The two security agents positioned themselves in the bar where they could overhear Seamus’s conversation with Marjolein. They were masquerading as a gay couple. Gay? They were not even remotely happy. How could they be if they had to listen to the conversations you have just read? Seamus busied himself in Finnegans. He was looking forward to the quiz.

At seven the Genii Quartet (GQ) pub quiz team came into Finnegan’s. Seamus ignored them and let Marjolein take care of them. Moon would come at eight when the quiz started. The GQ were four distasteful dickheads. Seamus did not like them. Two tax officials, a community policeman/ probation officer, and a wheel clamper. All men, very serious, very boring, twatty, officious, fuddy-duddy drudgy dickheaded homo-sapiens. They thought they were the Dutch equivalent of the UK Eggheads and they went from pub to pub winning the quizzes hands down. It wasn’t just that they won everything that upset Seamus and Moon. It was their behaviour. Their obsession with remembering endless lists of data. Utter attention to detailed trivia. A person with an excellent memory and a penchant for remembering often obscure and irrelevant facts are not necessarily intelligent. Such a facility does not make one a genius. There are many university professors who are as thick as two short planks and owe their position to their great ability to remember things. The GQ arrived in Finnegan’s an hour before the quiz with their reference books swotting and grilling each other over their revision. Mean arrogant little creatures all shagging in the office at lunchtime on the quiet and who made a small beer last a half an hour. They relished the cheap prizes they won and took them off as trophies on their bicycles to their pub quiz prize hoard. They were originally called the Magi Quartet but they let it be known they preferred their nickname GQ, a name they invented themselves, and pretended the name was bestowed upon them by an adoring quizzical public. Seamus disliked the GQ even more intensely than Moon did and even more than Marjolein disliked Moon. Seamus disliked them intently and intensely but they didn’t know that. And that was good. It was wickedly good. Seamus had the element of sneaky surprise. The other six pub quiz teams came into Finnegan’s filling the place up. A tall very fit looking man, in his early forties, sporting a thick blonde mane of hair and with piercing green jade eyes, came into the pub. He found a seat up at the bar and ordered a tomato juice. His skin was a pale ivory sheen. Seamus had never seen him before. There was something about him. Who was this stranger?

This question urged Seamus to seek an answer and digress from the narrative. He stared into the Jameson mirror behind the bar. He stared at nothing, the reflection disappeared and he detached himself from the current dimension. He went deep into his mind looking for the entrance to the Mind Theatre. The green neon letters glowed warm and bright above the portal. Cead Mile Failte. He entered the Mind Theatre and went backstage. Bigbug followed him inside.

I am not Seamus.

I am sitting, very still, hiding out, behind da’s old treasured horsehair sofa in our wee house in the Market area of Belfast. My da is missing and I am trying to find out where he is. There are four women in the room, my ma and three neighbours from our street, Bond Street. We live in number 38. The women are eating biscuits, drinking tea and having an early afternoon gossip session. I dare not move. If they discover me they will throw me out, into the street to play, and I will never find out about the mystery of creation. I need to know what is going on. At least two of the women are pregnant at any one time, sometimes all four, and all they talked about was what the doctor said regarding the life forms they were nurturing in their swollen bellies. I desperately want to know where I came from and how I got here. I have to find who created me. I have to find my da. When I asked my ma she said, “All you need to know is you are a child of God.” God? Who is this God? Where is this God? How can I find him? I need to talk with him. I know from my eavesdropping that the babies are in the women’s swollen bellies. What I want to know is - how the fuck did God get them in there and did he put me in one? The door is flung open and a woman, Agnes Bradley, from three doors down, rushes into our front room. The breathless, heavily pregnant woman throws her two bags of shopping onto the floor. She flops into a chair and lets out a - wait until I tell you what I saw when I get my breath back- whoosh. The gossiping stops and my ma and the other three women look expectantly at Agnes Bradley and wonder what has caused her to, abandon her shopping, come here, and make such a dramatic entrance.

Curtain up.

Things are improving. We have an audience of one. It is the tall stranger who is sitting at the bar in Finnegans.

Ma hands Mrs Bradley a glass of water. “Calm down, Agnes, and breathe in and out slowly,” advises my ma, “and remember what the doctor said.”

Mrs Bradley gulps down the water. She is too excited to do anything slowly. She shouts, “There’s an Indian in Ann Street so there is.”

“An Indian?” questions Mrs Boyd, “here? An Indian in Ann Street?”

“A Cowboys and Indian Indian or an Indian Indian?” asks Mrs Loughran.

“An Indian from India and he might be married.”

“How can you tell if he is married?”

“Because there are two of them and one of them is wearing a beard underneath his turban, so he is. And the other one is a woman. I’m sure of it, so I am. An Indian woman and she is full of gold bangles, so she is.”

“O there are two of them,” says Mother, “why didn’t you say so in the first place, Agnes?”

“Nobody asked me, so they didn’t. We better rush if you want to take a look at them. They might be heading for the docks. They might get away, so they will.”

“I don’t think Indians from India can get married. The Pope wouldn’t stand for it.”

“No, unless they are from the black babies.”

This possibility produces a revered respectful hush broken by the pious Mrs Loughran joining her hands and speaking as if she were puffed up in the pulpit praying.

“Isn’t it a wonderful thing all the same that all those pennies we gave to the black babies mounted up, to such an extent, the black infants have grown in Christian grace to join our one true holy and apostolic and are able to afford the fare to come over and visit us,” said the proud and forever pious Mrs Loughran.

“Wait until poor old Canon Sturgeon hears about this,” said ma.

“He will be thrilled with his poor brother being a big pot missionary and all that.” Mrs Loughran blesses herself and kisses her Rosary beads. “He was not eaten in vain, thanks be to God.”

“I’ll get my Brownie,” says mother, “and let us pray we can get a couple of snapshots for the parish magazine.” Mother gets her camera. “Where exactly did you see these Indians, Agnes?”

“They are in Woolworths buying cutlery.”

“Doesn’t it make you proud to be a Catholic, all the same,” says the ever pious and devout Mrs Loughran, “we gave our pennies to the black babies, poor as we are, and look at the results. We baptised the pagans so they can get married in the eyes of God and now they are over here on their honeymoon and are eating with knives and forks and spoons just the same as you or me and, let it be said, the Holy Father himself.”

The women exit to catch sight of the Indians from India. Mother lingers until they leave the room. I stand up from behind the armchair and shout at her, “Where is my da?”

She will not tell me. Instead, she tries to divert my yearning by saying to me, as she rushes out the door to catch up with her cronies, “There is nothing stranger than a strange stranger.”

The door closes.

Curtain down.

Bigbug applauds. It likes the sketch and makes a critical analysis of the performance. This human’s mind is in a strange place. The human’s life force has diverted enabling the creation of a mutonic bypass that has found its way into the realm of artistic sub-space and it was all as a result of the installation of an intellectual decryption programme created by the human Moon and gifted to the human Seamus. Did Moon know what he was doing? Bigbug could attend the performance but it could go no further than the theatre. It could not go any deeper into Seamus’s mind. The theatre was surrounded and defended by some sort of firewall. This was very interesting to the bugs. The human could not predict the future but it could re-enact the past in real time spent. If the sketch was real to life, then it was a new kind of performance. It was retrograde time travel theatre. The power, the force used to re-enact, to bring the characters onstage, as they were then and as they are now, was a subliminal and subtle force that originated deep in the human mind. Bigbug could enter the Mind Theatre but it was prevented from reading this humans mind. It was curious as to what lay backstage and beyond the walls of this playhouse. This force was directly wired to Moon. Bigbug could not see where that energy source was. No. Not at all. Not yet.

He exits the mind theatre and returns to Finnegan’s. Bigbug follows him. Seamus’s pint has gone flat. The pub was filling up for the quiz.

“Hi Jude,” said Leather John to Moon who had come into Finnegan’s exactly on time. “What do you want?” Leather John was the EWAB’s quarter master/ unit drug dealer and his primary duty was to keep the eco warriors fit for resistance against the MIC with a plentiful supply of beer and weed.

“Pint,” replied Moon. He had slung on his right shoulder his Foreign Legion small pack or his hand grenade pouch as he called it. It is reported in bar room dispatches Moon was scuttling about the deserts of the world with this pouch full of hand grenades chucking them at the enemy. Survivors were made to eat raw spuds or join the Legion.

“Here,” said Leather John,” have one of these.” He handed Moon one of his several pints he had ordered at half price before happy hour ended. It was flat but that was not the point. “There is nothing, absolutely nothing like half price beer.” He was duly delighted when he saw Marjolein scowl at him. It made his day. “Have you brought this rock with you?”

“I did,” said Moon, “and he pats his grenade pouch. It’s in here. It is not a rock. It is a meteorite. The Amsterdam Meteorite,” he shouted so everyone could hear him above the music and the din.

Bigbug could hear every word Moon was saying above the noise and hubbub of the customers.

“Let’s have a look at it,” said Leather John.

Moon opened the bag and let Leather John take a look at the rock.

Leather John sniffed contemptuously. “Take it out so we can get a good look at it.”

“No way. The meteorite stays strapped to my shoulder.”

“It’s a piece of ballast or something from under the railway track. It’s nothing.”

The Bigbug did not agree. It already had the scrapings from the rock that the expert had made in Dordrecht and the fifty-gram piece Moon gave to Dr Igor Beria.

“Take it down the scrap yard,” advised Leather John, “you might get a lollipop or packet of balloons for it.”

“No way,” shouted Moon above the hubbub, “this rock contains Iridium and Iridium can only come from outer space.

Correct agreed Bigbug who was secretly pouring Bug juice into his tomato juice. It could not really whip out its cock and jerk off into its glass. No not even in Amsterdam. Bigbug looked about him. There was the Seamus human drinking a pint of black beer. How this species drank alcohol, which attacked their body blood and vital organs, and paid for the process, never ceased to amaze it. They were gormless with more logic in a louse. The bar was heavy with smoke. It didn’t affect Bigbug it having no lungs, but the humans seemed to enjoy paying their hard earned money to turn their lungs black and develop all manner of entirely preventable cancers and conditions. The tumour twins - alcohol and tobacco. Bigbug believed any creatures that use these two drugs were a suicidal species and really had no place on the cosmic ladder of life. It watched Moon intently. What an odd life form. Was it human at all? There was some kind of aura shining about him originating in his head. His long black going gray wiry hair wriggled in a weird light. The light or energy sparkled out from inside Moon to buzz about around his bodily edges. A very peculiar aura, studded with creative cosmic connections, which Bigbug could see but not the humans with their limited vision. Bigbug took another sip of Bug juice. It had no idea what was going on inside Moon’s head. DATA concurred.

It was quiz time. The bar went quiet. The GQ had their noses in the air and all four were taking notes. Seamus detested civil servants though this quartet was not civil and we were their servants, paper prisoners, tax debtors and immobilised motorists. We are their pension and perk mules. We are economic fodder.

“Iridium,” said Leather John, “you must have had it examined.” Moon nodded and swallowed the rest of his pint. “Could be worth a few bob then,” he reluctantly conceded. Leather John made a note to list the meteorite in the EWAB stores inventory. He was a convert.

“Millions,” shouted Moon, loudly, “millions.” Leather John handed him another pint and clapped him on the back. “Maybe ten million!”

That got the attention of the Dutch.

“No, no,” said Seamus to the customers, “it could be completely worthless. It may not even be a meteorite.” He glared at the Moon but the Moon was enjoying himself by winding everyone up. Seamus went over to him. “What are you doing bringing the rock here?”

“There’s a mate of mine wants to take a look at it. He’s a jeweller, an expert. He knows a lot about precious stones, diamonds and gold, and all that business.”

“Don’t be talking about diamonds and gold. Keep that on you and do not take it out of the bag. Are you playing the quiz or not?”

“It’s all in here,” said Moon softly tapping his head. “I have Total Recall.” He was grinning.

Marjolein went up to Moon with the first set of questions. “Only yourself Jude?” she actually smiled at him and gave him a bit of the eye. She smiled at him in admiration. “We have never had a one-man quiz team before.”

“That’s all that’s needed. One good Irishman is worth more than four cheese burgers, a quartet of cheese head citizens.” He shouted over at the GQ, “I hear youse have a plan to tax sex outside marriage. Very clever. I can see you’ll pay nothing. Exempted. Off the road. Fill out Form B in triplicate with your willie and don’t copulate until Christmas-”

“Jude,” warned Marjolein, “best behaviour now.” The GQ was openly sneering at Moon. “Seamus has already paid your entrance fee. Good luck,” she said looking over at the meteorite in his grenade bag. Chances are improving greatly for Moon.

Moon’s jeweller friend came into the bar. Seamus knew him well. Too well. He was an armed robber who didn’t need to stroke anymore. He used to specialize in knocking off high-class jewellery shops. He didn’t sell his loot but hoarded it away and he kept it at home, which the police ignored. He was now a very wealthy major drugs baron but he was addicted to knocking off jewellery shops. He could not kick the habit. His name was Fat Don, a Brit codenamed by New Scotland Yard and Interpol as, the Manchester Magpie. He was a gourmet and Seamus noticed he had lost a lot of weight. Prison grub did not agree with him or him with it. He had been arrested in a coffee shop, in a lane way off the Spui in Amsterdam, with two Santa socks full of gold, diamond encrusted, Rolex watches that had recently been stolen in an armed robbery in the Spui, a few minutes before just around the corner actually, by a very fat man. His defence was all fat men look the same when wearing a Santa suit.

“Hi Don,” said Seamus shaking his hand. “Good to see you back,” Seamus lied. “How are you?

“I am pissed off, seriously pissed off. I just got out the nick yesterday. Early release. The Cloggies fucking deported me. I couldn’t fly back. I had to come through France and Belgium on dodgy papers. On a bus full of chattering backpackers and gibbering geriatrics. I could not get off the bus and nothing to eat but cheese sandwiches made by the bus driver’s missus. Have you ever eaten Polish cheddar?” He looked at Moon. “Where’s this meteorite then?”

Moon lifted out his meteorite and laid it on the bar. Fat Don’s piggy eyes glittered with greed. The Bigbug pointed his finger at the rock and scanned it. Its head reeled with tremendous force. It was shaking. The readings were unmistakable. There sitting on a bar counter in an Amsterdam pub, resting on an old, cigarette burnt, stained, scarred, pine plank counter top, was the most powerful life form in the universe. A DATA rock and it was surrounded by a bunch of drunken humans. Fat Don lifted up the rock. Bigbug winced and brought his shaking under control.

“The rock stays here, Don. It doesn’t leave my sight,” warned Moon.

“Touchy, eh? But that’s ok,” said Fat Don. He put the rock back down on the bar. “Hot is it? Fresh from re-entry? Fell of the back of a comet did it?” Fat Don whipped out his loupe and began to look at the rock. A most unlikely member of the jeweller’s guild.

“Drink?” offered Moon.

“Pint of Guinness, large Remy Martel with coke, and two bags of bacon fries,” replied Fat Don, the loupe still stuck in his eye, for all the world an image of the Borg, but you couldn’t say anything like that about Fat Don for he was ever prone to shoot people, being so very self-conscious of his morbid obesity. One couldn’t say such unkind things like that either about the fat bastard. Seamus saw his other unlouped (another new word) piggy eye glitter. There be mischief afoot. The strange stranger and there is nothing stranger than a strange stranger, up at the end of the bar, the tall wickedly handsome man with the pale porcelain complexion, was staring at Fat Don. Seamus thought he saw Fat Don give him a sly wink. Moon put the rock back into his Foreign Legion grenade pouch. He and Fat Don were having an animated conversation. Long Mark went to the microphone and started the quiz. After a short introduction, he went into the questions. The answers to the questions, the teams’ results, were read out after each round team by team. Moon was team The Meteorite Man. Long Mark read out the results “and after the first round the leader is The Meteorite Man scoring 10 out of 10.” There was a buzz of excitement in the smoky bar. GQ had only scored 8. Moon patted the rock in his grenade pouch. He was sitting on his stool up in the corner. He wedged his grenade pouch against the wall with his elbow. Fat Don stood beside him guzzling Remy Martel and munching bacon fries. Long Mark read out the second set of questions. Again Moon scored 10 out of 10. The GQ team was looking anxious. They had only scored 6! Moon was revelling in all the attention. Here was a man with a rare meteorite, a man on a mission, and with a quiz winning way about him. He scored 10 in the third round.

Marjolein materialized beside Seamus. “What’s going on?” she wanted to know. Seamus shrugged feigning ignorance. Marjolein persisted. She pointed up at Moon. “How can he score 30 out of 30?”

“I don’t know,” Seamus lied and smiled at her. Always was a suspicious bossy bitch, an old fashioned SBB. Seamus watched with great glee, the Genie Quartet flapping about, deep in animated discussion, frowning and farting, and glaring about the place. They hissed out their ass when they were vexed. There was no time for Marjolein to pursue her growing suspicions. She went back to work. The pub was busy, very busy, and a lot of people in there Seamus had never seen before. Out of habit, Seamus kept his eye on peoples bags and coats. The Zakenrollers (Dutch pickpockets) sometimes targeted the pub quizzes. Long Mark asked the fourth set of questions and once again Moon scored 10 out of 10. This caused a sensation among the quiz teams and Marjolein. She looked at Seamus and waggled an ‘I’ll deal with you later’ finger at him. There was a great buzz in the pub. The other quiz teams were enjoying watching the GQ squirm. The crack was mighty. Moon was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was basking in the dim smoky lights. He was on stage, The Meteorite Man, a one-man show, and he was now on his sixth or seventh pint of Heineken. At half time in the quiz Moon scored 10 out of 10 again. There was uproar. But the results were the results. The GQ was in a highly agitated state and so too was Marjolein. There was a break at half-time and they served up snacks, cheese, sausage, fried tit bits and the marijuana smokers went out for a smoke. It was not allowed to smoke weed or hash in the bar.

At half time Moon went out to smoke a joint with Fat Don. Bigbug sneaked out behind them. It was watching Moon and the rock. Moon had left the rock on the bar. Outside Fat Don, God bless the cracks in his generous black heart, gave Moon a little pipe of pure opium to smoke. What a treat!

“Cool,” said Moon. He smoked the opium. “Nice one, man.”

“Yeah,” replied Fat Don, “I keep it for special occasions.”

Moon was already floating. He walked across to the canal and sat on the bench. This opium was the business. He looked up at the moon and stars, staring out to where he yearned to be, his jaw hanging open.

“Moon,” shouted Long Mark, from the doorway of the pub, “Last call. The quiz is starting up.”

Moon was in wobbly wonderland. He could hear Long Mark but everything was wonderfully slowed down and warm and raspberry ripple rosy. Seamus dragged Moon back into the pub. Long Mark had already asked eight questions. No problem to Moon he just filled in the answers anyway. He filled in the answers to eight questions he could not possibly have heard. The GQ members were smirking. Long Mark read out the scores for that round. Moon scored ten out of ten. Moon punched his fist in the air looked at Seamus and shouted ‘Total Recall.’

Bigbug was fascinated by Moon. Here was a human with finely attuned senses with greater hearing than a dog and maybe even endowed with extra sensory perception or a practical working precognition. What other powers did this human possess? The customers didn’t think Moon had extra sensory powers and a gifted intellect. O not at all. There was an uproar in the bar, much consternation, cursing, complaining and a hissing of foul wind by the GQ. The second half of the quiz went by in a bit of a whirlwind. A strong sulphurous beer breeze. Long Mark announced with a wry smile on his thin lips, “And the winner of tonight’s pub quiz, scoring one hundred out of one hundred, is none other than Moon. Put your hands together for team The Meteorite Man and Mr Maximum Moon.” Seamus thought they wanted to put their hands together around Moon’s throat and squeeze hard. It was the only time in Amsterdam quizzing history that we know about, where someone, one person, scored 100 out of 100. When it came time to present the prizes, all of which went to Moon alone, there was almost a fistfight. The GQ claimed the quiz was fixed and demanded their money back.

“I can’t help it if I am a genius,” shouted Moon back at them, “what do you want me to do?” He appealed to the customers, “Give the wrong answers and pretend I am as stupid as them?” Moon pointed at the GQ who rushed Moon. The fight was broke it up by Seamus and Marjolein.

“The rules are the rules,” shouted Marjolein, “Moon has won the quiz,” she croaked in damage limitation mode.

“We will never set foot in this place again,” spat out the wheel clamper from the GQ. “Never.” This bastard had once wheel clamped Moon’s old mini.

“If you give me that in writing,” replied Moon, “I’ll frame it and buy you a spiky butt plug each and a tube of Chernobyl sex lube.”

More dire threats and ungentlemanly behaviour but the rules were the rules. Moon had won. The four bottles of wine, his four Edam mini-cheeses, four key ring beer bottle openers, four pocket torches, four nail clippers, four plastic frogs that said dada when you squeezed them, 40 Euros and lots of other cheap useless unwanted knickknacks. Moon was delighted with his prizes. It was to him four Christmases on the one day. All the prizes were presented to Moon by Long Mark. Moon laid them out, displayed them on the bar by his side, and he and Seamus gloated at GQ’s anger and anguish. The GQ stomped out of Finnegan’s. Always were bad losers. Never played cricket you see. In the midst of all this, Seamus looked at Moon. He was gray faced and distressed. He beckoned Seamus over.

“The meteorite,” he croaked, “it’s gone.”

So were Fat Don and the Bigbug.

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