Chapter Two: It's a good day

Waking up the next day offered a gratuitous prize. It was the sudden realization that he didn't have to work that day. He had fifteen dollars in his dark denim, an empty belly, and suddendley, a feeling deep inside that something important would happen soon. That it would all be alright somehow. Charlie woke up optimistic that day. It was ten AM, the sun shone through the dingy drapes onto his cot. He got up, brushed his teeth and put on on his fashionable armani shirt, used his expensive Paco Rabanne cologne, and left, leaving his apartment a mess. His few material positions that indicated he once held wealth and access to good times with exotic supermodels reminded him of all that was available to him if he just did what he had done before. Know the right people, get into the right clubs, meet the latest drunk or coked out heir or heiress, and live the high roller life once more. But, as Charlie headed down the stairs of the asian ghuetto building, something stuck him as peculiar. Everytime he had received a paycheck from the chinese restaurant, he felt a satisfaction like no other. A satisfaction of being his own man. Of perhaps one day owning a restaurant, a club, and be surrounded by pretty women, but on his penny. Charlie did feel the slight sting of the hypergamous lifestyle he was leading. He felt no better than the goldiggers that hit on him at bars, mistaking him for one of Paris Hilton's ex boyfriends.

 The repulse he felt for them, must be the same negative feeling some women and most men felt for him, he thought. He reached the bus stop off Xi Yang street, five blocks away from his apartment, and sat down on the steel bench. Even the poor chinese semed to have vehicles that Charlie would never admit he envied. As he looked across the street, he saw three asian men, walking, covered in tatoos, with ''f**k off'' written clearly across their foreheads. They wore dark sunglasses, and were built like tanks, except for the man in the middle, who stood well above the others, with a slim but strong build. On the corner of the street was a lamborghini, and two of the men entered the vehicle. The slim man spoke to them in a suspicous manner. Charlie knew these guys were dangerous. He had heard about them in the news. The infamous organized crime syndicate, the triads, were ever present on the streets of China town. He had seen one of them threatening one of the tenants from his building. He had walked in on them in the hallway, and the triad thug was punching the teeth out of the middle aged man who whimpered what Charlie could only guess was ''I'll get you the money''. The man had angrily looked at Charlie, and knocked the noodles he was eating from his trajectory from work, through that hall, to his apartment. There comes a point in a man's life when he sees certain situation, sees certain men, and he realizes ''I better not mess with this mofo''. And that is what Charlie felt that day.

 Waiting for the bus seemed a dull endeavor. He sat, thinking of where he would go. He most definatley would not want to stay home, all that brought him was a reminder of his current financial situation, the realization that he hadn't cleaned his place in one week, and that the next day he had to return to work. Maybe he would visit Harmony gardens, have a soda water in the upper district, visit the port and take a few pictures with his outdated camera phone. Who knew. The bus arrived. It was short and aquite dirty looking machine. Then he saw something that determined where he would go next. ''28 TONIGHT.... CHAMPAGNE...CLASS...MUSIC... VIP ONLY''. Charlie Read the advertising on the bus. Charlie smiled to himself. ''You gon' ged on oh waat?!'', said the fat, angry looking asian bus driver. ''Yeah, sure pops...'' He  walked up the short steps and payed the bus fee with spare change he gathered two days previous, awaiting his bus ride into the city. He remembered that he knew the PR manager of 28 tonight, Gary glitz. His real name was Gary Geldheim and was a forty year old Jewish man, who had a personal harem of the city's hottest women, due to his position in the night club industry. And Gary owed Charlie a favor. Charlie walked in on Gary having sex with a transgender prostitute, which immediatley prompted Gary to bribe him and never let anyone know. Charlie, pitying the poor guy, had told him that he wouldn't tell, but that he owed him one. And that was precisely what he would remind Gary Glitz of. It doesn't hurt to try, thought Charlie. He sat down in the window seat of the back of the bus, and looked through the glass at China town. He was still optimistic.