Weirdness, Friends, Insomnia…

My friend Adika thinks eating pumpkin seeds is weird. I laugh. I find it funny that he says that. I think it’s a smart declaration of war. Very subtle. A disguise. I think he is playing dirty. Well, Adika is my homie from a long time and I know he has had quite a few encounters with seeds before – "battles" that he is not at all proud of; battles that he lost, for the most part. Most happen to have been run-ins that left him defeated and nursing repeated urges to visit the bathroom. It is why I laugh. But there's also something wrapped in that statement that I secretly admire. It tells you that my boy doesn’t go down easy; he drags the enemy to the dust with him. Just when you think he is done with – when you’ve written him off - he comes back and takes a bite, a huge bite off your thigh. He provokes a fight under a different guise (if need be), a different fight with you the enemy so he can settle old scores.

He is pretty convinced that seeds are not food; certain seeds. And he is a small-time farmer too, you know? So, I avoid debate because what do I know about seeds? What can I tell a farmer about seeds that he doesn’t know already? He believes eating pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds, or any of those other seeds that they roast and add salt to, and then package nicely as snacks, is to play the same ball as a “rosta” smoker. It is to operate from the wrong end, to stand on a false bottom, to embrace the uncanny. Rosta is that filterless cigarette that old women smoked back in the day; the one they puffed from the opposite end – the lit end. I always lingered around to see if they were going to spit out the ash (hehehe). Yeah that was super weird to me, just the same way that orange-colored skinny jeans are weird today (They make folks look like forked carrots). I thought those women smokers were eating fire. Whether rosta-smoking and seed-eating boil in the same kettle is beyond me to say, though, because weirdness is fuzzy these days.

A few nights ago, however, an incident happened that dispelled all doubt in me as to what is king of the weird. This act I witnessed while playing thief has no disclaimer. It chokes all debate before they even start. It is an outlier even in weirdo-land - a lone wolf that is beyond giving shit.

Here's how it happened. That little annoying bastard called a “headache” had crept into my head that evening and was mining something in there with a hoe. It was pounding what I imagined to be something heavy and hard-edged and mean against the wall of my cranium. At one time I thought there was a quarry in my head. I went to bed early because of the mining. I was in a foul mood, like a bitch, but what could I do? I wanted to escape from myself and suck the blood of someone in skinny jeans or pick up a fight with anyone carrying a hoe.

I did not sleep long, though. I woke up around 2 in the morning. The bastard was gone - the terrorist in my head - but an uneasy quiet remained there, like a scene of a crime. It was still. You could actually feel melancholy in the night air. 2 AM is a terribly lonely hour, so lonely you'd think time has stopped, like the world has held its breath. Still, I knew life was moving on elsewhere. I knew there was a guy desperately trying to pick a girl at some bar or some party somewhere at that hour. He was most likely whispering in her ear, like a drug peddler on a subway; a desperate man closing in on a kill. Or maybe he was being smooth and deliberate, like someone with a scoop of a weighty secret, as though he just figured the elixir of life - the ultimate panacea - and that she had better thank her stars she gets to hear it first. I knew someone was flying over the Atlantic, and getting closer to seeing family again as the minutes rolled. Maybe he had not seen them in years. Maybe he had missed graduations and anniversaries and birthdays, and granny’s funeral. Maybe he wouldn't see them at all after all because someone would hijack the plane. I knew someone was just completing a job application. Life was moving on. Someone else was choking somewhere, gasping for air; breathing his last but another was just getting born. A revolving door; that's what life is.

I got out of bed and switched on the lamp on my reading table, and then picked up the Yasir Arafat biography I’d been reading. I turned on the radio just to kill the quiet a bit but sorry to say, I did not notice which station it was tuned to. Listen, I only say sorry here because my knowing the station would have impacted how I tell the story, ok? Good. Presently music of an accordion – faint at first, then louder – poured from the loud speaker. It was good music for reading, so I adjusted the volume control and began to read. I did not pay close attention to the radio but at some point the music stopped, and an audience applauded. Then a man’s voice, chuckling and pleased with the applause, said, “All right, all right,” but the applause continued for several more seconds. During that time the voice once more chuckled appreciatively, then firmly repeated, “All right,” and the applause died down. “That was Alec Somebody-or-other,” the radio voice, and I went back to my book.

But I soon became aware of this middle-aged voice again. Perhaps a change of tone as he turned to a new subject caught my attention. “And now, Miss Samantha Lewis,” he was saying, “of Chicago, Illinois. Miss Lewis is a pianist; that right?” A girl’s voice, timid and barely audible, said, “That’s right.” The man’s voice – and now I recognized his familiar singsong delivery – said, “And what are you going to play?” The girl replied, “La Paloma.” The man repeated it after her, as an announcement: “La Paloma.” There was a pause, then an introductory chord sounded from a piano, and I resumed my reading. I went back to Beirut, where Arafat was now holed up with his PLO brigade.

As the girl played, I was half aware that her style was mechanical, her rhythm defective; perhaps she was nervous. Then my focus was fully aroused by a gong, which sounded suddenly. For a few notes more the girl continued to play falteringly, not sure what to do. The gong sounded jarringly again, the playing abruptly stopped, and there was a restless murmur from the audience. “All right, all right,” said the now familiar voice, and I realized I’d been expecting this, knowing it would just say that. The audience quieted, and the voice began, “Now -”

The radio went dead. For the smallest fraction of a second no sound issued from it but its own mechanical hum. I half-thought to push it over the edge of the table to the floor but I killed that thought. Suddenly a completely different program came from the loudspeaker. I hushed it. I was mad it interrupted me. I switched off the radio and went back to my reading, wondering vaguely what had happened to the other program, to Miss Samantha Lewis and her piano. Am still wondering…if you’d like to know (hehehe). I can wonder about silly stuff at 2 AM - after a headache and a nap.

My watch was now saying 2:47 but my eyes were still as open as a baboon's butt. I could not sleep. I had put the book aside. Against my good judgment, I logged on to Facebook – the whorehouse of vanity, but a house we refuse to vacate nonetheless; a house we love  – in case there was an insomniac like me looking for company in the endless space of their timeline. While I had been gone, someone had sought to be my “friend”. In my mind I imagined that someone had walked up to me, a complete stranger, and tapped my shoulder, and been like, “Could I be your friend Senor?” It was a girl, I suppose. I say so because the name was feminine but I doubted it was a real name. I think it was an “a.k.a.” – those monikers that a lot of people hide under while they engage the world. It didn’t help matters either that the profile picture was a group picture, taken in what seemed like a stadium. So I could not know for sure if it was a man or a woman here. Remember there are also men among us who act and dress and speak like women (and women who do the same). You can never bet on anything these days. Some men also play women but that's that.

So I decide to play stalker, to go through her pictures (I assumed it was a she). I wish I had not. I wish I had gone to bed instead. As I stalked my way through her pictures I realized that I know her – Awino! Good gracious! We were in nursery school together, years ago! Her brother had picked a fight with my cousin Alfayo once. And I remember the older boys had then arranged for them to “meet” after school and put their differences to bed. I was there. I was carrying Alfayo’s bag. And I remember that what Alfayo did during that after-school meeting was illegal, but illegal was fine at the time; there were no rules. I had then bought buyu for him afterwards on our way home. My way of patting him on the back.

I guess I did not recognize Awino straight out because the image I had of her was the old one – the little Awino with a small school bag on her back, and a tin. She did not cross her legs back then; she was not a lady. She did not wear mascara, or carry a purse. Now she does. You could not throw down the gauntlet her way; she’d cry and have the teacher call your bluff and kick your ass. She wasn’t a poser; she was a little schoolgirl then. I continued to pry through her photos, without her knowledge – like a thief. She was a model now – tall and beautiful. Lot’s of pictures of her on the runway. I imagined that a lot of men must be trying to hit on her – conceited men, big men with small smiles, men with bottomless hearts and also heartless men, men who think that the sun rises from where they stand, men who are sharp, witty men, men who don’t get jokes, dull men, bigoted men, angry men, men with egos on steroids, young men, old fat men with pot bellies. All manner of men. I somehow felt sorry for her...then quietly carried on.

She had one habit that killed me, though. It would kill you too. She eats fish using a fork. Please stay seated. And am not talking about salmon or fillets or any of those other fish with fancy sounding names that make "mbuta" sound ancient ; am talking about good old tilapia. Now how do you eat a tilapia’s head using a fork, my friend? How? Doesn't it give you the disturbing feeling – some tinge, perhaps - that you are just being a...well, a clown? And if you don’t get that – like Awino here – how do you make peace with yourself afterwards? Huh? I think that if you can look yourself in the mirror after that and not feel weirdness rushing out of the mirror towards you then you are not of this earth; you are an alien. A fish-eating alien. My first thought was to poke Awino and hide but she’d have thought I was being gay, right?