Chapter 5 - Rich in Singapore 1974

B has his taxi already waiting for him as he lands in Singapore. He strolls through the airport terminal after the brief immigration protocol, watching what is becoming of his life.

The taxi rolls smoothly into the city until they hit slower traffic and then the flow becomes jerky and disagreeable. Metal boxes spitting out black smoke everywhere until finally there are so many that no one is going anywhere.

"Here is fine." He tells the driver and passes forwards a hundred dollar bill and exits without thinking about the change. Being rich means never having to handle coins. He takes the subway and emerges twenty minutes later in the thriving insanity of the metropolis for which Asia really shows a talent. D glances around at the high-rises with distaste and ducks down a pedestrian street to increase the access to oxygen.

Further up the street two musicians are playing for coins. Their long hair is hidden beneath their caps to avoid the discrimination of the police and they've also consented to leave their rainbow clothing in their bags to appear semi-acceptable. The girl with pink, puffy cheeks is singing with a twelve string guitar and her voice is clear and optimistic as she sings "Imagine" for spare change in the tarmac aisles of corporate Asia. Her boyfriend is tonguing complementary phrases on his tenor sax but he's limited in his expression as the buttons for the upper octave are damaged. He can't afford repairs.

Though it is hot they are trying hard and are at the climax of their song as D strolls past and lets fall fifty dollars. Simultaneously they abandon their performance, resting their instruments against the wall with a clang as they hold the note up to the light.

"Thankyou! Thankyou!" They cry in excited chorus as D already dissolves into the hazy crowd. They kiss in celebration but their lips don't meet too well because they're smiling so much. They pack up their stuff and scurry off to eat in style before the banknote disintegrates.

D, too, is heading off for lunch but in more luxuriant style. The doorman of the restaurant is dressed in absurd pomp and salutes D as he approaches. He holds open the darkened glass doors and the Englishman steps into the air-conditioned environment inside.

"Table for one." D tells the tuxedoed waiter who turns his heels to lead him over to a discreet round table in the corner with a candle glowing beneath a scarlet shade. D takes his seat beneath the fighting dragon tapestry. As the beasts of green and red contest upon a silk battleground above him he scans through the menu without much enthusiasm.

He orders a few things and the waiter leaves him alone to his thoughts. The restaurant is about half-filled and there is a light buzz of well-to-do conversation around the place. Mostly the clientele are businessmen discussing matters with colleagues and clients over cocktails and prawn soups. Occasionally, tipsy titters ring upon glasses of wine but otherwise the background sound is only that of insipid jazz, watered-down for Asian tastes.

B watches his fruit salad arrive and also notes the slight swell in the waiter's eye as he sizes up his customer for the anticipated tip. D doesn't blame him. It's all just part of the game and everyone must play their role. From his current privileged position he's able to sit back and watch with detachment.
Money has no morality. He is not rich now through previous lifetimes of acquiring spiritual merit. Neither is the special favour of God upon him. He just has the money in his wallet and therefore he spends it.

Money circulates, grows, diminishes, changes hands, transforms, profits and bankrupts without expression. It's insipid and void of essence, lacking meaning or substance. Put it to a flame and only the watching humans will scream.

Money is a whore. It buys regardless of who spends it; be it a thief, a thug or a politician. There's no license required to wield banknotes. If you have them sit down and have a drink. If you don't maybe you should look for the exit pronto. Most people work all their lives for next to nothing. Others hit it lucky with their first yawning speculation. It courts the already wealthy and influential, drawn like a magnet to the scent of power. But if things it ditches leaves these tycoons in rags in search of new masters. No promises were made after all - Hey, as it says on the dollar: IN GOD WE TRUST.

Money sweeps through places, people and times with unfathomable tides to which only historians dare attach explanations. It whitewashes buildings and pavements, clears the homeless and decrepit from the streets and sprouts gold-tooth hope in the smiles of boom-town populaces. Then for no tangible reason, whispers of its imminent departure grow in the alleys and the corner tables of cafes and bars. Blame whichever convenient bunch of Niggers, Jews or Gypsies are at hand. The rich clear out fast on good information and the honest fools stand spluttering in disbelief as money catches the first taxi out of there.

Some find it. Some marry it. Some print it. Some will give you advice on how to make it, if you'll pay them for the service. Others will hide your money deep underground or within the structure of a microchip. For a small commission. Mothers walk the streets and sell their bodies. Husbands roam abroad and enslave themselves to send home a future for their children. Their little ones try to sell cigarette lighters in the streets. Whereas in other parts of the world, rich playboys take jet plane rides to Singapore for the day to eat in elite restaurants simply because they have little else to do.

D, of course, didn't do anything for his money. He was just born into the right family. Inheritance. The blessing to sweeten the sourness of bereavement. The sudden phone call that transforms one's credit status in moments.

B comes from a long line of squanderers. His grandfather possessed a family fortune that could probably have bought all of Thailand. However, he was happily devoid of economic acumen and contrived to invest in entirely Titanic schemes, doomed political campaigns and generous loans to the least credible of aristocrats.

He was not enough of a conjurer to pull a complete disappearing act with the ancestral assets and so the torch passed on to B's father. He did his utmost to drown in fiscal waters despite the bank balance that buoyed all around him. With a penchant for high-calibre yachts he took up the challenge with relish and proceeded to make many ship builders across the world very rich men.

Still what was left was enough to last a lifetime for any sensible and prudent person with even half an eye to the future. Bad news for D. But right now he can afford to eat in places that do not include the prices in their menus. He mixes in Asian high society with the wealthy from abroad who have worked out that they can have a much better time for a lot longer at Thailand's prices. D is just a chance visitor to this world and whilst he may have scorned them a few years ago, he currently respects the rich for really having their shit together. They coast on ice through lives of abundance and mean to stay there - Though it's better not to ask what they do behind closed curtains to achieve this.

It's still all quite new to D and so he's still perhaps a little charmed by the novelty. If he had tried to come into a place like this a few years before he'd have been sent sprawling in the gutter.