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“Does this bus go to LondonDerry?”

I asked the bus driver in the middle of a typical Irish downpour.

“You mean FreeDerry Laddy?”

“No LondonDerry?”

I stayed firm as I have ended up elsewhere before.

“You must mean FreeDerry Laddy,” The bus driver hollered through the door as I got on the bus, ” You’d better watch youself lad, you never know who your talking to.”

Pondering over my Guinness I finally realized that its either FreeDerry if your an Irish Catholic resistance sympathizer or LondonDerry if your an Irish Protestant United Kingdome sympathizer.

I had learned that the two groups do NOT mix. The U2 song Bloody Sunday based on a Catholic resistance attempt where the English police force opened fire on a peaceful demonstration and that was just an explosive example of the everyday violence.

A sure way to end up in a wheel chair is to be a Protestant and go into a Catholic pub or vice versa. You are either a friend or an enemy and religion is the judge.

“Was the bus driver an IRA member?” I wondered as I studied the Irish Resistance Orange regala crammed into every spare piece of wall and ceiling behind the tiny bar.

In my attempt Irish authenticity, I was slowly making headway into the conversation of the 3 drunken Irishmen at the end of the bar. They were not welcoming, but I managed to get my hook in and slid over my stool into their unknown conversation.

“So who do you think will be elected pope laddy?” asked one of the rosy faced Irishmen with his 2 Guiness settling in wait on the bar.

Pope? I thought, Oh my god, what did I get myself into? I fortunatley did not think aloud as I began to recognize the magnitude of my situation. Here I am, a non-catholic, sitting in a strongly IRA supporting pub in the most volatile city in Northern Ireland discussing the controversal topic of the new popes election with non-other but 3 completely hammered Irishmen.

I fielded the pope question diplomatically and began my manuevering through 20 minutes of heated religious debate, always maintaining the unquestioned assumption of devout Catholic heritage.

The rain was pouring on the stone roof and the cigarette smoke was settling about a foot above our heads. In a bold move I interjected my opinion “I can’t see them electing either the German or the American as pope.”

The largest, drunkest, most avid chain smoker (who apparently used to be a friar monk) immediately took offense “Your wrong lad, as long as they’re Catholic it doesn’t matter where they’re from.”

He turned his heavy jowls and deep set blood shot eyes towards me through the plumes of smoke,“You should know as a good Catholic man.”

With my heart racing and my mind screaming the alarm, something in my eyes must have given my impostering away.

The infamous Irish intuition must have sensed it. The ex-Catholic sat upright in his stool and the entire bar’s conversation came to a focused silence as everyones heads turned in a growing sense of anticipation.

He began to growl, “You are a good Catholic aren’t you?”

Frozen I frantically looked for the exit, but all my mind could settle on was “I am completely alone and in serious impending DANGER.”

Sputtering I managed to squeak out,

“Well … Sir…

I’m not…

not…

Catholic.”

A 60 year old englishman with a face like Keith Richards sitting on Caribbean Island in cutoff frayed jean shorts drinking the cheapest beer possible as he has been for the past 40 years.

You can only eat so many god damn lobsters. When I was living in Belize 30 years ago, I worked for a lobster fisherman while living in a shack on the beach. Belize is so god damn strict about their fishing regulations that I was paid not in dollars but in f**king 5 gallon pales of undersized lobsters.

You might think that sounds pretty good, but I’ll bet you’ve never had to eat nothing but undersized spiny lobsters. Trust me mate, there’s only so many f**king ways you can eat a f**king lobster. I tried frying it, boiling it, roasting it, broiling it, barbecuing it, currying it, pickly it. Since I wasn’t being paid any money, every god damn day for every breakfeast every lunch and every dinner I had to go back to that god damn pale of seething lobsters. And don’t think I just started to hate lobsters,  I’ve always hated f**king lobsters even before lobster hell. Did you know that they scream no matter how you cook them?

 I used to be a buddhist until I realized how much bad lobster karma I’d accumlated,  so I’ve just said f*ck it ever since.

I was the ripe young age of 18, backpacking through China with my childhood friend. We found ourselves at the Shaolin Monastary in Zhengzhou so deep within the Chinese countryside that we had not seen another foreigner for weeks. We started chating (in charades) with one of the monks who we assumed wanted money, but after 20 minutes of enthusiastic antics we offered him money and he refused. If you have ever been to China, you know how unusual this is, and so he automatically earned our trust.

Just as we were about to leave, he beckoned us to take a photo in front of the Shaolin temple, after which he motioned for us to sit on the temple steps. He placed my friend on the steps below me and placed my hands on my knees below his neck. We did not know what he was doing, but suddenly he began to press with both hands on my friends neck. After a few seconds, Greg sprung up with frieght in his eyes muttering “lets go, come on lets go”.

Obviously spooked, I calmed him down, but insisted on wanting to see what this monk was up to. We traded positions, myself now resting against Greg’s knees and the monk know pushing all of his weight into his hands into my neck. Just when I began to realize the foolishness of allowing myself to get into this situation, my vision began to bleed out and I helplessly lost consciousness.

Greg did not know what was happening nor for how long I was unconscious. When the monk withdrew his hands, Greg later told me that my head lifelessly slumped to my chest. Greg was frozen with alarm. The monk cupped his hand and struck me on my back, which Greg said immediately caused my head to spring back to life. I began to regain consciousness not knowing who I was nor where I was only to feel an old man striking me on the back. With wild eyes of fear and confusion, I grabbed the neck of the old monks orange robe and rose with a fist cocked ready to send him to his next life. Seeing my confused rage about to be unleashed, the monk put up his hands and cowered, beckoning me to look into the surrounding mist covered mountains. With one hand pulling the monk to his tip toes and the other ready to break his nose, I turned and stared into the fabled mountains and valleys of Shaolin.

Ok, I now know that I am Michael. Where am I? In China??? Is the only person who knows I here frozen pale faced Greg?

As reality began to sink in I let the monk go and spun around to see a closing circle of cackling old Chinese women holding money in the air. Whether they were betting on my potential beating of the old monk or trying to get us to give the monk money we coudn’t figure out, but one thing was for sure, it was time to run.

From this a pet peeve of traveling was learned: I DO NOT EVER let anyone touch me, if they do, they get the wild glare which made even an old Shaolin monk cower.