It's the early nineties, and I had left an overcast and dreary Birmingham, UK, and was heading for downtown Doha,Qatar, along with two other forty foot artics laden with not the usual pipeline technology, or any other oil exploration equipment that was our normal cargo, but seating for a football stadium. Oh yes, the Qatarian's loved there football, this was there fifth stadium the size of Wembley. How this would feature in future World Cup bids was far from my mind, as this, one of my first trips to the Middle East, had so far by the time we were approaching the Syrian Border at Cilvagazoo in the bottom left corner of Turkey, been uneventful.
Bob had been his, what I found to be, his normal whinging, whineing, brummie, moaning self every time we stopped. Yeah he moaned alright,but with twenty years experience of trucking down here, there was no better to run with, with the exception of H. Almost equal in experience but completely the opposite in character. H just laughed at everything with his chirpy Cockney wit refusing to be serious.
We had crossed no mans land and were greeted by the 'deaf and dumb' man. Yes he was deaf and dumb and could only manage a elongated yawn similar to Chewbakka out of Star Wars. But this pint sized pen pusher would translate all our documents from English into Arabic to prevent us from sharing a room with hasheesh traders.
While Bob and H headed to the phones(no cab phone or mobiles those days) to call there loved ones and let them now we had survived the Turkish mountain roads of Bolu, Eskendrun ad Tarsus. These were twisty narrow hairpin bended spaghetti shaped roads that draped the mountain's, where the natives would overtake, three abreast at times, whether it be on a bend or with you right next to a sheer drop of over a hundred and fifty feet, where if you dared to take your eyes off the road, you could very frequently see the carcasses of trucks, buses and cars that weren't so lucky. As they were having the much needed long distance arguments, I was brewing some 'chai', a strong version of tea for their return.
I was disturbed by a bearded six foot four Arab dressed in army combats with an AK47 machine gun strapped to his side.
"ENGLISH?" he bellowed as he stormed towards me. I nodded, somewhat nervously. "You have cataloger sex?" he forcefully asked.
"No."I replied
"You HAVE cataloger sex?" he bellowed even more forcefully.
"NO." I replied with equal measure. To which he unbridled his weapon with that all familiar sound only heard when someone slaps the side of a gun to let you know they mean business. He went straight to my cab and ripped open the door. He went through all my possessions, bags, bedding, briefcase. Lifted my bed, looked under my seats finding nothing he went to the storage bins on my trailer that contained my tools in one and tinned food in the other.
"YOU HAVE CATALOGER SEX?" I was comfortable that this law enforcer would not find any hasheesh or porno mags, or anything slightly risky as I'd been advised not to carry any as the punishment for doing so was severe.
"No." I replied with a huge sigh of frustration at this burly blundering beast ransacked all my possessions.
He then stood up, and with the look of thunder engrossed into his brow, he came right up to me, his spice engulfed breath panted into my face as he raised his AK47 and poked it into my stomach.
"You, have, cataloger, sex?" he asked again pausing between each word. And with a look I borrowed from John Wayne I stared with a steely gaze straight right back into his anger filled bloodshot brown eyes and said with equal steel.
"NO!"
The footsteps behind heralded the return of Bob and H, with that the Arab issued a begrudged "Humph" lowered and shouldered his gun and left brushing forcefully past Bob and H. With the look of bewilderment on both their faces, I offered Bob a thanks for the advice by saying.
"You were right, Bob, but that copper didn't find anything 'cause I won't carry anything dodgy!"
H quipped "That weren't no coppa, that were the local mafia bloke, he wants it so 'e can sell it you muppet! Ain't you got that tea done yet, what you bin playin' at?" he chuckled.
