Crybaby - Chapter One

The first chapter of the blockbuster new novel, Crybaby by best selling, multi-award-winning author Mark Watson...

CRYBABY

©Copyright 2024 by Mark Watson

CHAPTER 1

The Thief, the Mahout and the Holy Man

The first time the thief had seen the elephant, he had coveted it supremely, like a gimlet-eyed rat discovering a fresh trash heap that would feed it for years. The cunning thief was new in the village and disguised as a beggar to scope out opportunities to burgle and rob by violent intimidation. His entire life had been lived around the giant creatures, and it had never occurred to him to want one, but he felt it suddenly and sharply. Across the square, the huge painted elephant carried what must have been the entire population of the village’s young children on its broad and hairy back. The thief had been about, the nature of his business and his fairly extensive experience meant he generally knew when to move on before he was caught and imprisoned, which also happened fairly frequently.

The thief, wary that in his current guise as a cripple he couldn’t exactly leap to his feet, very slowly stretched to a shaky stand and sat on the low, uneven mud-brick wall he had been begging from. A real beggar, mindful of the reputational damage this display of health was doing, fake-hobbled over and pulled on his filthy robe to bring him back down to a level more fitting for a supplicant. The thief kicked him away but lowered himself back down again anyway. He could still see the elephant; it would be hard not to. You could probably see the damn thing from space. It was easily the biggest elephant in India if not the world, freakishly huge. The thief could see that, even through the legs of the passing market crowd.

Walking next to the beast was a little old man with a stick, the mahout. The thief looked at him closely; he was smiling and chatting with another old man, a shaman or guru of some sort. Fools. The thief spat into the dirt. He could hear the other beggar, mournful and pathetic but experienced and wily, taking money he would have had if he hadn’t been preoccupied by the colorful procession and its enormous swaying grand bull. No matter. He would claim some of that money later. The thief didn’t just rob and burgle, he robbed and burgled with violence if given half the chance, it being all he had known from the day he was born, and beating, hurting, and leaving someone bloodied usually entered his head before the thoughts of the money and served as the real reward. Cars and mopeds swerved to avoid the elephant, beeping cheerfully as the children laughed and waved from the loftiest perch in the squat village, even on this dusty roundabout at the top of the one ramshackle street of low hand-built mud and straw huts.

The thief closed his beady eyes, but the shape of the elephant stayed like a blob of blue-green desire. It was boiling, boiling hot, and the only difference, the only standout feature of this hole, was the mighty beast clumping around the dusty, deserted, and rarely used roundabout. Imagine the money a man could make with such a beast. The thief’s imagination and creativity ran out there; he had no idea how to turn this elephant into cash, but that would come later; first and foremost, he would take a better look at this withered little mahout and his equally stringy little shaman friend. Both of them looked like cigarettes that had been stubbed out, brown and dry and squashed and hunched, yet striding so nonchalantly next to this absolute mountain of an elephant. It was obviously a bull, and the evidence it was a tusker was there for all to see, its tusks were long, stained but unbroken and curved and pointed sharply. The left tusk was twice the length of the right, and it looked like somebody, maybe even the children, had wrapped it with ribbons before their ride.

The thief closed his eyes again, and briefly he could picture himself, striding next to the blue-green sun-bleached shape of the elephant, casually swinging his knobbly stick. Not only did he have the power over the giant, he had the laughing admiration of children to boot, heaven. A shadow passed across and plunged the thief’s vision into darkness. He opened his eyes. The bus from the town over the mountain had arrived. Normally the begging highlight of the month, but the thief stole a wallet from one of the passengers alighting from the vehicle and used it to buy a ticket for the return journey to town.

As the old imperial bus honked and pulled out for the return journey, it passed the elephant, and the thief yet again marveled at the pure breathtaking size of it; the windows of the bus barely seemed to reach its knees as it swept past. The thief smiled, intent with sudden purpose. He already had a plan for the pair of old fools, but he would need resources the little village couldn’t offer. He was thinking big now. Elephant big.

A couple of weeks later, and the thief was back. No longer a beggar when he stepped off the bus, but looking this time like a normal, respectable person, shaved and clean, though still slightly frayed if you looked closely and rough around the edges, and also carrying a bright blue backpack of western design.

As the thief made his way into the village with the other small dribble of passengers, a hand clasped his leg. The other beggar.

“Back are you?” snarled the beggar, “Looking smart too, what’s your game, eh?”

The thief kicked him off without a word, spat at him, and rushed away.

The thief had nowhere to stay, and his clothes wouldn’t stay clean for long if he didn’t make contact immediately, so he set off in the direction he’d seen the elephant come from the last time, and it didn’t take long before he knew he’d made the right choice. At the side of the road were painted signs of elephant rides and temple tours, and soon he reached a hut decorated with elephant paraphernalia. Sitting outside was the shaman he had seen before.

“Hello, my friend,” said the thief, approaching the ramshackle hut and disturbing the shaman, who had his feet up on a fruit box in the sun. The shaman shielded his eyes and regarded the stranger with mistrust and, he hoped, some form of mysticism, something he hadn’t planned on needing today and realizing he was at a profound disadvantage, reclining on a faded, tatty old deckchair and smoking a hash joint, and stood up to better see who had come calling.

“I’m very, very sorry, sir. Please forgive me for intruding upon your tranquility,” said the thief, arms raised in peace, palms out. “I’m new in err town and my cousin who lives somewhere around here said he’d meet me from the bus but he has failed to arrive. Please can you give me directions? Nothing more.”

“Nothing more?” said the shaman, who had nothing really anyway but was no spring chicken and was already feeling his inner alarm bells ringing from the curious energy coming from this one.

“That’s all,” said the thief, “Between you and me, I’ve had a hell of a journey. We could have done with your err connection to the spirit world on the bus. A man died on the way here. That’s why we were delayed and I missed my cousin. He left his backpack under the seat and it’s full of whisky.”

The alarm bells stopped abruptly.

“Whisky?” He gulped.

“A couple of bottles, some very fine cigars, and a beautiful board and pieces too. It looks like he was off to meet a friend and play a game, drink some whisky and smoke some cigars and have a good old time eh, the poor chap. Imagine me finding it too. Devout as the day is long. I never touch a drop. Tell me, sir,” he settled the clinking backpack onto the floor and drew out one of the bottles, “is it what one would call a decent drop?”

The shaman wiped his mouth with his hand, he was suddenly very thirsty, it was indeed a decent drop.

“Not really. Standard err kind of stuff, that whisky. What are you going to do with it?”

“I hadn’t considered that,” lied the thief, “I was more preoccupied with wondering where on earth I can stay; the bus has already gone back to town. What good is whisky to me? In the river with it!”

“Not so hasty,” said the shaman, who had started to get the inkling of an idea in his own cunning mind. “Why don’t you come in out of the terrible hot sun and have a cool drink? Then we can think of finding you somewhere to stay, eh? Come. Not a word. You must be tired and thirsty.”

With what seemed like reluctance, but with a sharp glance over his shoulder, the thief allowed himself to be led inside the shanty dwelling.

There was food in the backpack too, wrapped in delicious pastries. Shoplifted fresh before the journey along with the drinks and a pile of nearly new, freshly laundered clothes. The thief knew the clothes were freshly laundered; he had stolen them off the line, but even the smell of fresh rain-washed shirt and shorts wouldn’t cover up his body’s unwashed stink forever, so he needed to put his plan into action fast.

The shaman’s hut was full of the usual dangling paraphernalia and mystical tat, and the thief brushed it aside to sit facing his host. He fussed with the backpack and could see the holy man’s tongue lolling out of his mouth each time the three bottles clinked in the backpack. The shaman had done some swift arithmetic; if the traveler didn’t drink, there was at least a bottle or two up for grabs, simply for providing hospitality. It wasn’t long before the mahout appeared, ducking into the hut with open arms and a smile. “Welcome back,” he announced to the thief, who he had never seen before in his life. That’s good, thought the thief; I’m stealing that. It’s tempting to think the shaman summoned his friend by telepathy, but in truth, he had summoned him by text message.

Now the pieces were in place; the thief saw no point in delaying proceedings, and the first bottle of whisky was opened swiftly afterwards. “There’s no point me lugging this ghastly stuff about,” said the thief, “I beg you gentlemen, would you be so kind as to swap a bottle or two of this,” he gestured open-palmed at the bottle, glowing almost ethereally on the overturned box that served as a table in the hut, the golden liquid inside swirled in the candlelight. The bottle of whisky in the center of the hut had become the center of attention in the sort of way only a movie star enjoyed, “for a bottle or two of water?”

The thief didn’t believe much in mystical powers, but the speed the shaman moved was uncannily rapid for a man his age. He leaped to the other side of the hut and moved some bric-a-brac from a broken and sagging ramshackle cupboard. The cupboard had no door and was partly covered by dirty rags. Behind the rags, however, was a state-of-the-art modern mini-fridge. The thief caught a glimpse of the red and white of Coke and the green and yellow of beer bottles, and almost as though the shaman had the power of light speed, two bottles of water now sat on the table, cold and dewy with droplets of condensation. The shaman opened the bottle of whisky and drank a quarter of it before coming up for air. He drank another quarter then slumped to the floor clutching the bottle, stupefied.

“Do you play?” The thief asked the mahout, bringing out the gaming board.

It had all gone according to plan. The thief hadn’t had to kill or hurt them; he hadn’t even had to threaten the two old men. They drank the proffered whisky without suspicion and fell asleep almost immediately, too old for the kind of aggressive ranting and violent behavior normally brought on by the consumption of such an amount of fiery whisky. The explanation for this was simple: the thief had laced the whisky with powerful sedatives, stolen in the city. He filled his bag from the hidden fridge and searched the hut. There was far more than you would think in such shabby, hermit-like dwelling, but the thief had a practiced eye and soon had dug up or dug out anything of value and pocketed it. He put all the whisky in the center in the shaft of light. He had all other nourishment in his backpack so hopefully the two men would take another drink when coming round and finding no other option. He was pretty sure the shaman would. The mahout had a big bunch of keys and his elephant stick. The thief took the keys and gave the stick a swish. It was awfully flimsy. Is this what he used to control the massive beast he had seen earlier that year?

It was only then that the thief realized the flaws in his plan. He had no real idea how to control a tourist elephant. He had worked with elephants before; some beggars had them, and he had also worked on construction elephants. It was hard not to live in this state and not be a little familiar with the workings of elephants, and he stopped for a moment, lost in thought he remembered some of the control words he had mahouts say and some of the gestures. He was torn with abandoning his plan and leaving or muddling on. He decided to keep going; he had ideas and visions in his head of him and his elephant, for it was surely his now he had the keys and stick, dressed in regal finery, parading through the main city streets with laughing children running alongside and cheering crowds waving streamers and pennants. It was only when the thief emerged from the hut did the smile slowly disappear from his face.

The elephant wasn’t outside, and he had no idea where it was.

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END OF CHAPTER ONE

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Next Chapter: The Stone Bridge

Crybaby - Chapter Two

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