WEBVTT

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I actually met a guy on the
Island of Rhodes in the--

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off the Turkish coast.

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It's a Greek island
in the Mediterranean--

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in the Eastern Mediterranean.

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I met this guy who,
as it turned out,

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was sort of an
indentured servant.

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He'd gone there-- he was a Dutch
guy who'd gone there to gamble

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and had lost an
enormous amount of money

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and was loaned the money
to pay his gambling

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debts by the owner of this
pension where we were staying.

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And I think he was going to have
to work for the next five years.

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He was actually a kind of
high technician of some sort

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back in Holland.

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Or so we said.

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So this is called The Debt.

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Dignity exists, I'm sure.

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And because this
is Rhodes, it must

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be kissed by the
same Pentecostal

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wind swaying the palms.

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The histamine yellow
light warming stones,

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even if behind the
lobby bar a Belgian

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named Rene stands clowning,
pouring, wiping, talking,

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talking his bartender chat.

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It is only later
in the consuming

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lime and gin of the later when
he mentions the debt incurred

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by gambling perhaps,
keeping it vague,

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sneaking in some explanation
at any rate for how

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he finds himself unable to
return to his previous life.

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His cot is visible through
the open pantry door.

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And on a shelf next to it by the
hot plate, a bottle of luminol

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for migraines.

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But the blackness of his
earring, a single pearl,

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severs itself from light as
if to corroborate the fact

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that after his debts were paid
off by the owner of this C-class

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pension and his passport
taken as collateral,

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he went to work here as
bartender, porter, night

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clerk, and maid, a
indentured servant

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with a five-year contract,
the first provision of which

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asserts someone might
manage to live purposefully

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by hauling the aluminum
white smoke of Gauloises

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into his lungs.

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His brain packed
in pharmaceuticals

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like a new camera, crammed
snug into a Styrofoam carton

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and shipped off to
an unknown address.

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The carton handled as carefully
as a common box turtle picked up

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by a slightly malicious,
mildly curious child

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who, having spotted
it navigating

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a tidal marsh, small flippers,
leathery slo-mo paddles,

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wriggling over the shallows
and through the kelp,

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grabs the turtle and ties it
atop scrap from a wooden lobster

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trap, launching the raft
out into the pond where

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the current takes
it down the cut

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and quickly, dutifully
abandons it to the waves.

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So the purpose of that was to
see how far you could actually

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get away from the story
that you're telling.

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It's like I seem to have
this need to move sideways

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a lot in my life.

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