The Wait

It is 2:03 am

He turns off the car headlights; not the  engine. The engine is still revving - a low, soft purr, like an animal’s. His mind is not on it right now. He reaches to the backseat for his bottle of vodka, the one he carried from the bar when he stepped out. It’s halfway done. He makes to open it but he changes his mind and places it on the car’s cup holder next to his seat. He lights a cigarette instead, his tenth in under an hour, and closes his eyes. He has always said to himself that closing his eyes makes him one with the smoke. Makes them bond at a deeper level, helps him meditate same way that monks recede to a monastery to engage with their spirituality in a place of quiet and solitude. He takes a long drag at the cigarette. Smoke fills his soul. Without opening his eyes he reaches for the button on the side of the door and lowers the window and lets smoke crawl out of his nose and the corners of his pursed mouth into the cold, chilly night in a lazy trail. He sits still. The cigarette smolders in a dull ember between his fingers. It’s almost soulful, almost visceral, the glow.

He slowly, even achingly opens his eyes and looks at the lights of the city in the distance. At 2am the city is asleep, but again the city is unlike you and me. It’s a different animal. A part of it never sleeps. And that’s the part that tells its story. A plane flies over the city now. It looks like a fire fly from here. It descends and disappears in the smorgasbord of lights and buildings. He can see lights move, which must be the city traffic. An earlier drizzle had left the air a little heavy with moisture and so from here the lights look like miniature blobs. Sometimes they look like spread-out dots of light that flicker and dull, as though breathing. He looks away.

In his car, at the edge of a cliff overlooking a massive ravine. That’s where he is. This is a place that tourists like to come to. Perhaps that’s because of its breath-taking view of the ravine that slopes miles and miles below in endless vastness and rock and vegetation and just plain old unadulterated beauty, raw and naked, like a caveman.  And then there’s the city sitting on the other side, solemn, looking in as though sighing to the beauty of the ravine. The view is so off the charts you’d think it’s a prank. And tourists come here, I guess, not just to take pretty pictures on expensive cameras but also to find themselves. This place helps you find yourself. There’s a presence about it that goes beyond the ephemeral; a presence bigger than life. You get the feeling that you're breaking bread with the gods, sitting here. Or perhaps that you've kissed a mermaid. It’s deeply humbling. Thoroughly grounds you. God should live here. He drove out here tonight for that magic, and who's worthy to blame him?

Now he reaches for the bottle of vodka next to him and chases the smoke down his lungs with a long swig. His throat burns but it makes him alive and he doesn’t miss the irony. Nothing matters anymore, and that’s why he is sitting in his car at the edge of a bloody ravine at 2 in the morning, getting wasted. Tears sting his eyes and he bites his lower lip, daring them not to come because even in this moment he still wants to maintain a level of dignity. He tries hard not to cry. He stares defiantly at the dark void, which is what the ravine looks like at night. He stares out into the distance and fails to see the beautiful sleeping city. It’s a smudge of lights. His eyes sometimes linger on a speck of light in the fringes of the city and he imagines someone sitting in that house watching a late night show, filling out a job application, packing up for an early morning journey by bus, eating a late meal, reading the dying chapters of a novel, tossing in bed. Life continues in seclusion of his woes, it dawns on him.

He had come home in the evening, today after work, and had changed into his work-out gear and gone out to the gym. After working out he had then taken a long, warm shower – longer than always – and then trimmed his side-burns and moustache and applied some aftershave. He had looked himself in the mirror, made faces, imitated his pot-bellied supervisor Mr. “Yay Yay” making a speech, and laughed. Mr. YY (as they all call him) giving a speech is the funniest thing you ever saw. It’s stuff of legend. He then had put on a pair of khaki pants and a gray polo shirt. No belt. He had crowned this look with his favorite coat, a brown corduroy coat. He loved that coat a lot, a present from his cousin Leah, the only person who seemed to give a shit. It’s a fancy coat. You know the type you see models don on fashion runways. Yeah, Leah has tremendous style. On his way out of the house, he had decided to throw on a scarf because it was chilly. Then he had looked around the house one last time and killed the lights before heading downtown to Plato’s for some on the rocks.

Now he sits here. He reaches into his back pocket and fishes out his wallet. He has a photo of his son. The last time he saw him his mother was dragging him away from him, screaming profanities at him. That was 6 years ago. He must be a big boy now, he thinks. He wonders what’s going on in his life. He sure misses the boy. He feels his heart sink. He continues to flip through his wallet; he has a credit card and two debit cards. There’s a business card with a name he can’t place. He thinks for a minute then tosses it away into the night. He then tosses away his debit and credit cards, one by one, and watches then float down and disappear in the grayness of the night. He has some money in the wallet, not much but enough to buy dinner at a decent restaurant. He tosses away these as well. He thinks to toss away his wallet too, with all its remaining contents, but he kills this thought. He places the wallet on the co-driver’s seat then takes a deep breath to calm his jittery nerves.

It’s 2:54 am

He grabs his phone from his coat pocket and calls the one person who would take his calls at this time of the night. The phone rings a long time and when he’s about to hang up she answers. “Hey,” she sounds sleepy, whoozy.

“Hey, Leah,” he mumbles, “sorry to call you so late…”

“What’s up, everything fine?”

“Yeah, am home. Just struggling to sleep,”

“What time is it?” she asks, sounding like she’s turning in bed.

“Two!?...or maybe three!? Am not so sure. Am sor…”

“Not so sure, huh? Thanks for waking me up!” she scolds.

“Listen, I just wanted to say that I won’t be able to see you tomorrow. Something’s come up,” he says.

“And this couldn’t wait until morning? Anyway, let me know when you are open…at a decent hour.”

He manages a little laugh.

“Leah?”

“Yeah?”

Brief pause.

“Never mind. You have a good sleep. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Sure, talk to you tomorrow. Get some sleep. Goodnight.”

When he hangs up his lips start trembling.

Time check: 2.56 am

He feels like someone’s seated in the car somewhere, watching him go through this. He’s sweating now. He feels a thudding in his heart that almost shakes him. A tattoo of death. He feels pain over that thud, like a punch. But mostly he feels fear, a potent and evil hand that grasps his heart and squeezes. He thought getting drunk would offer a shield from these sensations he now feels: the harrowing anxiety of the wait as the clock runs down, the twitching of his muscles, the angst in the pit of his belly. The hollowness. He feels dread, and dread feels like death. As the hour nears he feels ever more empty, like someone has dredged purpose from his inside. The last year has been nasty alright but what he feels now is only matched by the profound sense of rhetoric that the whole scenario has unfolded to become. He looks at his life – what he has done, what he wishes he did. He wishes he was a part of his son’s life and a drop of tear begins to run down his face over the beads of sweat. He wipes it with the inside of his palm. He loves his job, though. And he’s mighty good at it. He’s a fine journalist, something of a superstar in his field. A force of nature. This is the apex of creativity sitting up here in the middle of nowhere at an ungodly hour drinking hard Russian liquor and freezing his tits off -the very best - he thinks with half a smile.

He thinks of his brother who works at the stock exchange market in Gaborone. He wonders what he’s doing right now. He wonders what he’ll be doing when they call him to tell him about him. He thinks of his estranged wife; how evil she is. He wonders what he saw in her. It saddens him that he could have been so wrong about her, so blinded by her phony demeanor. He thinks of the music he enjoyed listening to. “Diamonds on the sole of her shoes” by Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Paul Simon comes top of that list and yet he never really loved it that much. He always liked Tracy Chapman, everything about her: how she strum on that guitar, how she sang from somewhere deep, how her songs came through as though riding on the wings of a butterfly, soft as the soul. Wasn’t she a beauty? He loved her dreads and how shy she seemed. He purposefully avoids thinking about his mother, because he loves her insanely. It would sear his heart, it would make him numb. He thinks of Leah and a deep sense of loss washes over him.

At 2:58 am

He starts to cry. A soundless cry. More like a sob. His jaws clench and tears roll down his now cold cheeks. He cries in silence. He cries like a sheep facing the butcher’s knife. He weeps, softly, with dignity. He weeps the way you’d weep when someone is not watching. Last time he’d cried like this was 6 years ago, when she took his son away. That bitch! They’d broken him then but he wept like a man: with dignity. He owned his pain.

When the hour comes around, he is numb. He longs to be saved from himself. He remains a shell of a man. He remains void and pitiful. A deep fear takes over him and he cannot feel his hands. The fear of death. He stares out at the dead city yonder but he doesn’t see the lights anymore; it’s a black hole. A light, cold wind blows through because the car window isn’t rolled all the way up but to his ears the wind sounds like a dirge. He is a man besieged by his own choice and he dies even before death receives him.

He is no longer crying, he doesn’t need to because his die has been cast. He takes a last swig from his bottle, puts out his cigarette and tosses it away in the ash tray. He takes a deep breath. He doesn’t pray.

At 2:59am

His phone alarm buzzes. He pushes the gear lever to “drive”. He then closes his eyes and steps on the gas pedal to the floor. The vehicle rushes forward violently off the edge of the cliff and starts falling, hitting rocks as it goes tumbling down.

His life doesn’t flash before his eyes. The ball has left his court. His fate is off his hands now. He feels the hand of death reaching out to him, cold as only death can be.

As he stumbles down he is unaware of the amount of pain he has already created. He is unaware that his only sibling, his brother, will crumble on the floor of his office and weep when he hears the news. He doesn’t know that his mother will be so shocked by the news she will plunge into a depression that she never quite recovers from. He doesn’t know that his buddy Joe, with whom he had a drink at Plato’s tonight, will blame himself for not having seen signs, any cracks. He doesn’t know that his father will turn in his grave with disappointment. He doesn’t know that his estranged wife will choke upon hearing the news, and cry herself sick. And Leah, oh poor Leah. She will play the last conversation in her head over and over. She will remember the labored, little laugh. The pause. She will remember the last words, “… take care of yourself, okay?” These immortal words will be the bricks to her citadel of guilt, a tall structure that will forever cast a shadow on her life. She will join a choir. Although they were close and she will miss him every day, she will hate him with equal passion, hate him for being selfish. And she will grow thin from thinking about him. His girlfriend of 3 months will refuse to believe the news. She’ll be in denial a long time. She will not know who he was. Everyone will be puzzled, unable to reconcile him with this. Question marks will stick out of everyone’s head.

He doesn’t know any of these as he falls.

The final moment is hazy and turbulent. It’s chaotic. He doesn’t open his eyes but he feels as though he’s rushing into something. Fear matters little now. The last thing he hears is a loud bang. It ends it all.

This is about Change...

If you are reading this you must have some access to the internet. You must, no doubt about that. If not, then you must be a witch. The kind that feeds on stories. Yeah, because how else could you have accessed this piece without going online? Yep, Witch. Now, I know too (and I can bet my fattest bull on this) that at least once in the recent past, you’ve heard someone next to you go off the rails about some stuff that just 20 years ago didn’t bother anyone. Some or other new-age ishhh that no one lost sleep over. The rant could have been about something mundane: their book that had run out of power, or about how they found it hard to believe that the hotel they’d checked into had Wi-Fi only in the lobby. Or maybe it was their bank. Maybe the bank, unlike other banks, had yet to develop an App that allowed customers a way to deposit checks from home through their mobile phones, and they were pissed about it. True, nobody cared about these things 15 years ago. Nobody gave a monkey's squirt. In fact, nobody talked about “Wi-Fi” or “Apps” 15 years ago. It was a language that people were generally deaf to. And if, by chance, you mentioned Wi-Fi or App people would have thought you were talking about those pets that folks walk out there in the streets when the sun takes a dip, like it was their nickname or something. They wouldn't have cared.

Today, however, they do. Reality is that the envelope has been pushed so far. We find ourselves at really close quarters with technology. So close that it’s extremely difficult to even turn without poking it in the butt somewhere. That, of course, makes it fun to be alive today no doubt, to be a part of the high society that man has relentlessly built over time, where you can hightail from a teargas-clouded street in Gaza to a front seat at the Maracanã in Rio, all at the touch of a button while you lie on a couch in your air-conditioned room in Maputo. It's like to kiss a mermaid. It's beauty. Tell me if Nero would not doubt Rome if he heard about this, or if word of a time like this would not have moved Christopher Columbus to a walk on the deck of the Santa Maria on a hot afternoon, nursing a cup of dulce de leche and I'll tell you who's crazier than a bat. It’s a bloody epic time to live.

Now assume, for shits and chuckles, that you have a friend – make it your best friend – who happens to stay across the city, on the other end of Maputo. [Maputo is where you reside for purposes of this story] You might be in the habit of hanging out at his crib most Saturday afternoons. That means a good deal of driving. Not too long ago you’d have had to master all the street names and numbers to your buddy’s place. You had to remember which street leads into which, where to make a left turn and where to make a right. Today though, you are not obligated to, at least if you are a lazy human being and keep your phone close by. Today the GPS App on your mobile phone takes care of your direction needs and you are freed to worry about other things. After you plug in the address to your buddy’s you can just sit back and let the robotic voice from your phone guide you there. And guide you back. The mobile phone has come of age and it is keen to make an impression. It is outdoing itself. Today your phone serves your every whim. The phone has even replaced the dog as man’s best friend. Yes. I know you ask How? That cannot be! Hehehe, that’s like standing at the beach and asking where the water is. I'll tell you why: your phone more than keeps you company; it serves you! It does everything for you. Well, nearly everything. It shows you directions to places, lets you surf the internet, records your mileage when you go out to run, wakes you up in the morning, reminds you to pay your bills...my goodness, that’s why! What it still doesn't do you can count on the fingers of one hand. It still does not tuck you in bed at night or scratch your back or give you a massage but…those too will come with time. No, I take that massage part back. They already do a bit of that. They massage some of our skittish egos. Hell, I think they do, just look around. Very soon they’ll start massaging our backs too. And I predict that that would be a hell of a spectacle. 

I think that's also the exact point where the proverbial plot starts to thicken on this. Hang on.

I read recently that Google is testing a self-driving car that might be released into the market sooner than you think. It might even be before you get to the end of this paragraph. It’s a car that will be able to drive you to Farmers’ Market across town while you chill in the backseat taking selfies and updating your Instagram like a boss, or whatever you choose to do back there. And when you get to Farmers’ Market I imagine a voice like the Jack Nicholson’s drawl will come through your speakers and announce, “You have arrived at your destination sir (or ma'am). Please stay seated while your car is looking for a parking spot.” I think a smile will escape your lips at this point. That's because your car serving you and addressing you in this manner will make you feel important. Yes, that time is nigh. And when it comes, there will be a change of roles, of man and machine. Man in the backseat and machine taking charge. Secretly, you will awe at the imagination that put it all together. This will be yet another edifice, another mark of high society – that place where fiction and reality converge and hug and melt into the same thing, where stuff that once lived in dreams only become substance and take shape and form, even acquire a smell and a character. And a touch of swag. It will be a long leap of faith. Important of all, it will leave you thinking, which is good, because thinking keeps you alive.

That said, I still cannot shake off the foreboding feeling of high scandal that I foresee come with that leap. High society is high scandal and, knowing this, the Google self-driving car is the kind of car I would dreaaaaad.  You’d have to tie me to a pole in the middle of an open market on a busy day and threaten to singe my nipples with a hot metal rod before I’d even come close to that car. Am not alone. Tell me: who would calmly sit there and trust a car to drive itself in the mad asylum that is our highways and not feel their stomach tighten somewhat? Point him out for me so I can beg for an autograph. He would have to be nuts, real real bananas. One would have to nurse a double-digit exponent of harrowing craziness to pull that ishh off, believe me. It’s a walk on thin ice, a daring provocation of fate. It’s scary as hell, noting the laughable fickleness of technology.

If the frontiers are stretched that far I’ll begin wearing mini-skirts and akala, I promise. Or I'll leave and you won’t see me. I’ll board a time vessel to the past. And am not referring to the swinging 70s with the bell bottom jeans and shirts that looked like a rainbow had thrown up on them. I mean a past so dim you’d have to squint your eyes to envision it, when names like Org and Zog still made sense.

Stuff must have been way simpler then. And forward. Vanity had not been invented yet. They didn’t say LMAO then...or even, what's that other one, TTYL. No. I imagine your typical life story played out something like this…

Birth...

There was none of that fan-fare leading to this oh-so-special moment. No one constantly hounding you and prodding, asking if you knew whether it was a boy or a girl…the information wouldn’t really do anyone any good. Think about it. Equipped with the knowledge of what was to come, what would happen? Would they stroll into a little gift shop and pick up a pink pebble or a blue boulder? The parents didn’t have to put up with the whole redecoration of the house thing either. My very educated guess is that you all slept together, you and your other folks; there was safety in numbers. The room was covered in stone. Painting was not a thing until much later. Sure, there were hieroglyphics and all that, but going out and making the room habitable essentially involved rearranging a couple of rocks, stepping back to admire your handiwork and glowing with delight.

D-day would be a non-event.

“Honey am home. I bring boy.”

“Great!” The end. No decorations splashed about creating the impression that you had in fact gone and outdone the Virgin Mary. It’s highly unlikely that there would be some relative waiting to see where the new member of the gang got its looks from. Given that razor blades had yet to be invented, you looked like just about all your relatives. That moustache could have been from your aunt Ira.

The part I haven’t figured is how the breastfeeding thing worked. I often wonder: did the prehistoric mothers execute it differently? Or is it one of those things that time has failed to defeat? Did they, much like mothers today, suddenly think: well, now would be a grand time to yank out a boob and slap Org’s face with it. Somewhere along the way instinct will kick in and he’ll open his mouth and give it a suck. I imagine the daddy must have looked away right at the moment when his baby began to suck, or he might have pretended to feel the blade of his flint stone, feigning to test its sharpness and whistling an empty tune.

The 1^st Birthday

Depending on how events played out during the year, this one would either be a cause for a big celebration…or great sadness. Rather than contend with the infamous childhood killer diseases like polio, measles and others, prehistoric families lived in the constant fear that a Pterodactyl would sneak into their houses, disguised as a birthing stork and feast on the fruit of their labour. Thus to make it to birthday number one suggested that you were special. You were either too heavy to be carried away by a stork or yours was a pure case of good fortune, the kind they call beginner’s luck. As such, you would likely be given a gift for getting this far ahead in life.

This was the hardest part of existence back then. After you aced it, the world was yours to conquer.

Morning Run. A Doctor. Facebook

They pour out of their abodes. They spill into the boulevards, sidewalks, running trails. They sweat. They tire. They pant and gasp for breath but they keep running, which is to say that what they do is hitched to something bigger than themselves – to a purpose, you might call it, a will. They run through the morning chill, breathing out steam into the crisp morning air. Each step for them is precious, brings them ever closer to that purpose, whatever it is. Some bring their pets along but some run alone, battling solo like lone wolves. They are invariably young, this latter group. And hip, and always have iPods strapped around their arms, and earphones plugged to their ears. They are here but they are elsewhere too, lost in the rhythms and melodies of some song. Others run in pairs quietly – elderly couples mostly. Nobody tells you they are couples. That's not something you will be told, because at this hour nobody cares. Just look at their matching running gear and you'll tell. Even the couples don’t talk because a morning run is a journey that even though you may be accompanied to, is still one you pursue alone.

I run too. I step out and lap the miles. I would have said I run just to keep fit but that would be too simple – lovely as that is – and a bit too orderly and balanced. And while that is true, the reasons I run in the morning go beyond it, and are unconcerned with mere convenient symmetries. There’s something about the act that sustains, if you stop and ask any of those souls out there. Sometimes when you run that early you see the world unguarded, in its very essence; you see the world buck-naked because she opens up to you. You see sights and hear sounds and breathe in smells that you don’t encounter any time else. The world is more generous and honest at this time. She readily provides for our health, and that means our happiness too. She keeps away bastards like cholesterol that might want to creep into and make our hearts weak. Or even the fats that pile around our society’s waistline thanks to all the junk food and lifestyle. She clears and strengthens our minds too. It is while taking these runs that I have had some of my most staggering thoughts. And beheld some of my most memorable scenes.

This one time I was running on the sidewalk, humming a song under my breath. That's not very accurate; I was panting the tune out. I got to a crossing zone and stopped because I was looking to cross to the other side of the street. The traffic lights were red and vehicles had stopped to allow us, the pedestrians, cross but I did not do so; I felt one of my laces go loose so I bent down that very instant to tighten it first. I would have then crossed if I wanted to but I decided to wait for the traffic to move. That's when I saw it. Like a silent film. Playing slowly, as though on slow motion. The car closest to me was a mini van. It was waiting, like the rest, for the lights to turn green. On the driver’s seat was a middle aged man in glasses and a moustache. There was a polythene bag sitting on his lap. Even though the windows were rolled up, I could see the inside of the car well enough because I was standing very close. On the back seats were two kids. Boys. They could have been three or four. Twins probably. And that man on the wheel must have been their dad. There’s this thing he would do as he was waiting for the lights to turn green: he’d reach into the bag and pull out something (I couldn’t tell what it was) and turn and dangle it in front of the two boys on the backseat and, immediately, they would rush for it, like angry dogs, pushing and shoving till one of them grabbed it by the teeth and gobbled it. Then they’d wait again, like puppies, for dad to dangle another, which he dutifully did. When the lights turned green they drove off with the rest of the traffic. What!!? What had I just seen? Are these the games moustached men play with their kids when stuck in morning traffic? Whatever... but again, these are some of the things you see in the morning.

[Enter stage left, Solomon*]

This is my friend that I run with sometimes. A clean-shaven guy with gentle eyes. An amazing guitar player. I’ll tell you something about him shortly, just hung on. What I do when I plan to run is I wake up at 5am and brush my teeth (this is to wake me up completely). I lace up my trainers, throw my hoodie over my head and silently step out into the bleak dawn chill. And some mornings can be inhumanly chilly I tell you, cold even, like a hyena’s snout or a witch’s titties. I jog over to Solomon’s place - if he’d told me he was gonna come along – and throw a pebble at his window to signal to the son-of-a-gun that am out here waiting, he better step out quick. We then head out. We never converse the whole time till after we are done.

Now,

[Enter stage right, Facebook]

If you live under a rock, or happen to have found yourself in this century by mistake, Facebook is a social networking site. Meaning that people interact (or is it socialize) with loads of other people. People speak their minds here. They take photos of themselves on shaky phones when they do something cool that they'd want others to notice and put those photos here and their “Friends” then, in turn, “Like” them and give props. Sort of like a pat on the back. It’s just like the real world, you know? Oh, and another thing: you can talk to someone in camera too, away from all the noise of the yuppies who walk the streets of this little virtual world courting attention like celebrities. You do that by dropping your message into this “someone’s” inbox. And they can get back to you the same way. Or if you want to let them know that you know they are still around, that they haven’t kicked the bucket or something, you can “Poke” them.

You interact with people from all walks of life just like you do out here in the real world – lawyers, fishermen, teachers, football players and doctors…especially doctors.

            Now the reason I summon Facebook onto the stage is because Solomon told me a story involving Facebook and it’s only fair that I bring the folks over from UnderTheRockVille up to speed. We had just finished our run and were now just stretching and exchanging banter when he mentioned that he happens to be Facebook friends with a certain doctor from the neighborhood. Pretty neat, no?…only he thought that that denied him the thrill of telling a few harmless lies anymore when they were needed. This is what he meant: he stopped by this doctor’s office and their conversation went something like this;

-          Hey Doc, I feel a little under the weather…

-          I can imagine, that was some crazy party you went to, eh?

-          I don’t think I follow…I was home the whole weekend…

-          Nuh, man… don’t you remember, you were at this pad with an Olympic-size pool… with Melissa and that other girl, the tall one with dimples. And your boy was trying to lick face. Do y…

-          Oh, that…I had forgotten about that one…

-          You forget too soon Solomon. You only uploaded the pictures last evening…

-          What the…

-          Don’t worry, doc-patient confidentiality. Anything you tell me is strictly between us, like say if you gave me Melissa’s number I wouldn’t mention your name, you know…You could suggest that she becomes my friend.

-          Well, I don’t know her that well…

-          C’mon Solomon, you have 37 friends in common… but enough of that, what’s the problem?

-          I don’t feel well Doc…

-          You feel like your head’s got a 24-wheeler truck trying to come out of it? And like everything you eat won’t see eye to eye with your insides and wants to leave? Using whatever exit is available?

-          Yes Doc, how did you figure that out?

-          Well, that’s your status message from this morning, or was that not you?

-          Oh…I..

-          Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing; just a hangover…Albert was right. And he seems pretty cool; do you think he would let me friend him?

-          What?

-          You’re probably right, why don’t you like his status message and suggest that I like it too…

-          Dude, that’s weird…

-          No it’s not; weird is poking every girl you have a crush on, on Facebook.

-          Do you do that?

-          Of course not…do you think I should?

-          Dude, focus…I’m sick.

-          No, you are hangover. Just go home and get some rest; you’ll be fine. Now seriously…do you think it would be weird if I poked Melissa on Facebook…, you know, before we meet for real?

Friday Blasts and Other Things

You think Lupita Nyong’o was the biggest thing that happened this year, don’t you? And what else? Her brother photo bombing a selfie at the Oscars? Mhhhh [clears throat. Adjusts self on the seat. Nails you with a glance]. I have a surprise for you [lowers voice]. Forget Lupita (though she is devilishly cool). Forget the selfie, will you? I present to you Jimmy and Nora [pauses]. They are my friends. You’ve got to meet them, because nothing I say here can possibly do justice to the awesomeness that they are. It will fall painfully short, what I say. And I will blame myself. I will call myself vain for thinking I could summon the wherewithal to narrate The Great Friendship Story.

They have quite a story. They left the drowsy streets of Teulon, these two, because they could not stand their mayor, Mr. Benninger. The mayor was applying a bit too much make-up on Teulon, a little town in the armpits of Quebec, a province in Canada. He was hoping to present Teulon to the world as a lady but Teulon was just a girl still. Teulon could not cross her legs yet much less carry a purse. Or wear mascara. And all that make-up, all those buildings replacing forests and farmlands, was hiding her real beauty. So Jimmy and Nora, keen on conserving the innocence of Teulon, stopped and talked with friends about the issue. Then with the mayor. They pushed for a change of policy, perhaps. Nothing gave. They grew angry. They got angrier, and agitated. At some point they caused ruckus and protested bitterly. Still nothing. At last when it dawned on them that they could not change a thing they showed Mr. Benninger the middle finger. The glorious middle finger. Told him he could kiss their ass. They packed their bags and left. And spent the next several months combing the Caribbean – farming, making friends, attending concerts, bonding, fighting, making up, laughing, making love, living their fantasies. I wrote about them here after I met them the first time. Lovely people; really lovely, the kind that girls see and gasp, “Awww, they’re so cute together, oh my gosh!!!”

I thought I wasn’t going to see them again. Ever. Drifters like them cross paths with you just once. You are lucky if you meet them again. They disappear, like fog. But they linger in your mind long after you part, and rush at you at unexpected moments. You could be walking down a crowded street someday several months or even years later and you catch, within earshot, someone call their name. And you hear a response, a familiar voice. And you turn to look but you cannot tell who responded or who called. The street is crowded and everyone's on the move. You wait a second time but the voice doesn’t call again. And memories of them come rushing back, flooding your mind.

Jimmy wrote me an email recently. It looked more like a note, you know, the sort that you scribble and slide under the door when you visit but no one’s home. There was no salutation, and he did not sign off either. Looked like he scribbled it then took off after his point was made. Or maybe a gust of wind blew him off, like a fly, before he could finish. He’s so skinny, you know, and so there’s always that danger. His point was made, though. He was inviting me to join them again. He said they would be in town.

Later that week I find myself seated at the end of a long dinner table, which is basically three or so tables rammed end to end to create that Romanian effect. The restaurant is Italian-owned, am told -  a cute little spoon with candles burning inside colored holders on every table, and soft fluty music oozing from overhead speakers. And a pretty cool retro décor. It's a quiet, mellow place. It feels almost lonesome for me – the long drawn out flute chords, the candles, the frozen pictures on the wall. Add to that the fact that waiters at this restaurant almost tiptoe around the room when they take orders or deliver them or refill glasses… I guess it’s the kind of dinner setting they call highbrow in the hospitality circles. Big shots come here to get a peace of mind. How elegantly highbrow. How stiff. To their credit, however, the food really comes through. It’s worth the hype.

Within minutes am so bored ideas start frothing in my mind. The rascal in my head tells me to get up and step on the table, and walk end to end peeing on the candles while swaying my waist and singing that funky Bob Marley song Caution the road is wet/ Black soul is black jet…/When you wet it slippery yeah/When you dump it crumpy… I have not seen Jimmy yet. Nora either. Apparently they’d said they were running late and had left word for the “host” – a young cool stylish guy with a ghoulish sense of humor – to see to it that am well received. He speaks quietly, this guy, like someone who's sure of what he's saying. Says his name is Paul (I forget his second name). I can pick from his accent that he’s Brit (or maybe he’s lived there). He looks exactly like the latest Batman, Ben Affleck, I mean exactly. When I first met him - outside the restaurant – I mentioned that to him and he had growled, “Innit?” I bet that night he stood before his bathroom mirror and muttered, “Stirred or shaken? Do I look like I give a shit?” He is seated across the table from me.

To his left sits Ben Affleck’s lovely girlfriend. Clear blue eyes. Amazing tan. Brilliant conversationalist. Down to earth. Gracious. Oh, so damned gracious. She has a face right out of film noir, a face meant to be shot in black and white. She keeps blushing, though…but I think that’s because some guys in the table behind me are pouting at her, blowing her kisses in the air. She is training to be a nurse. She’s also mad about animal rights and volunteers at an animal orphanage. She turned 24 a few days ago and the dinner is in her honor.

To my right, scattered in six or so seats are a bunch of their friends and their girlfriends or boyfriends. Not everybody here knows the other and so there’s a lot of “nice to meet you” talk going. There’s the silent Arab-looking guy a few seats away, with a puff of hair spilling from under his gray hat. He has a beard, giving him the look of a prophet. Next to him is his girl, sitting with one leg folded under her. She keeps rubbing herself on the guy, touching his beard. And prophet doesn’t seem to mind, who would? There's something I find oddly funny about this girl and those beards but I can't tell what it is. Next to the prophet and miss prophet (or is it prophetess) is a dreadlocked guy. You know the odiero dreads that hippies wear? He’s quiet now but as the evening wears on he evolves into a potty mouth. He is funny as hell. Next to him is an arty looking black guy in spectacles (Albert) who I later learn is from Haiti. And I was right; he paints! Next to him too, as seems the rule, is his girlfriend. As we go round the table introducing ourselves and her turn comes, Albert steps up and says that she speaks very little English, very rudimentary. So he comes to her aid. She’s called Myou (hehehe). I don’t believe that name. Even if you pay me I wouldn't; she doesn’t look like a Myou. I think he made it up. Goodness, Albert!

Now am going to say something a little girlie here, whatever that means. I noticed that there is something deep about these two; they look like they truly deserve each other. Seriously, they do; there’s an ease between them. An effortless attraction. Am not saying they are in love, but I can tell that they are friends and that is better than love any day. Well, next to Myou is this skinny guy who’s been smiling the whole evening. He has blonde hair and a mischievous face. He looks stoned. Julius. He has the habit of punctuating the end of each sentence with an expectant smile when he speaks, like a happy question mark. He’s Jimmy’s home buddy. He protested with them in Teulon. Jimmy and Nora tell me he’s their comrade. They were in the trenches together. I could tell the camaraderie (sorry I could touch it) between them when Jimmy and Nora finally pitch up. Nora lets out an “awww” and puts a bit of a sprint to her step when she sees Julius. It’s raw joy. She runs over and hugs and kisses him on the cheeks. And hugs him again, holding on to him tight for several seconds. And weeps into his jacket. When they finally pull back, she holds him at a distance, hands cupping his shoulders, and looks into his face as if she were appraising a painting. There's a film of moisture over her eyes. They are alive with love, the joy of meeting an old friend, a comrade. Julius’ eyes are watery too. But Jimmy’s standing there fighting back the tears. A viking. A titan. Schwarzenegger. He's from that dated school that subscribes to the maxim that crying is a feminine vocation, something that would injure his street cred. He's not down with it, hell no. The rest of us know that he’ll soon succumb, just wait. Oh yeah, there goes Jimmy. Jimmy succumbs, breaks down like a sand statue hit by a wave.

PS: A bit of house keeping before I proceed. It’s getting a bit redundant (no, very redundant) saying Jimmy and Nora, Jimmy and Nora, like this is some hip hop song from Dr. Dre's studio. I’ll just say J&N from now on, okay? Okay. I'm just being polite by the way. Whether you consent or not doesn't really matter [winks]. Your vote doesn't count in this part of the woods because this is not a democracy after all (hehehe). I run this ship (with an iron fist) and what I say sails ;). Alright. 

Jimmy’s uncle is here too (with his wife). All four of them walked in together but he escaped our notice because of that slight moment when love got the better of J&N and Julius. Our very gracious host had let the elderly couple take their seats at the head of the table. They had quietly waited for the Walhalla to die down before the uncle, a jolly man in crutches, shot out aloud, “You can tell that we’ve been partying hard, right?” raising his crutches aloft. Everybody laughs; we get it. He laughs too. He’s a retired stock broker. Lives on a farm in some rural Canadian town (whose name I forget now) with his wife, also retired. A former school teacher. They crack all of us up the whole time, regaling us with funny, witty tales, making everybody open up and engage. They breathe life into the assemblage. They have two daughters who’ve already moved out – one to Montreal and the other to Ontario. And at one point during the evening while talking about his family, he flashes out his phone, a beat-up old thing with an antenna and says, “My daughters call me on this [clears throat]…from out there where they live. My girls. Their distant voices at times saying to us how stressful it gets living out there in the city, you know? Really sad to hear because then you remember the little girl playing and running in the backyard, her little joyous laughter ringing, floating in the air like a haze. But I secretly smile sometimes because I know that what they really mean is that they cannot seem to find a guy as cool as their dad hehehe. It’s the…”

“Honey you cannot say that; it’s not proper,” his wife interjects, cutting him mid-sentence. 

“Oops! Am sorry honey [a little silence] It’s all that drink talking,”

 “I told you to go slow on it…”

Silence. He looks around. A drunk dreamy look. And changes the topic. Wise man indeed. Knows how to choose his battles. The restaurant manager walks up to our table and announces that they are about to rearrange the place because they are hosting a band and some spoken word artists tonight. He requests that we move to an adjacent room - still a part of the restaurant - for just a few minutes. We oblige. It is here that I get to chat with J&N. He still looks like a forked carrot in his skinny pants and that Mohawk cut. Nora’s changed a little bit. She’s dropped that Gestapo cook look. Her hair’s not clean-shaven any more. She has a head-wrap on but flowing black hair is spilling out from under it at the back of her neck, as though not content to stay caged in the wrap. They say they are headed back home to Teulon with his uncle. Jimmy’s dad insists he (Jimmy) has to “get his life back together”. He’d expressed an interest in Law and now he (the dad) wants him to come back and apply to law school. And “quit playing silly games running around the world with an equally silly girlfriend”. Jimmy had taken offence at his dad calling Nora silly and it had taken the intervention of his uncle to convince him to come home.

The uncle and his wife join us briefly, between talking with the other fellows. Oh boy, the old bloke can talk. And he has these nuggets of wisdom that he rolls out when he’s having a conversation. They are pillars on which his words rest, I guess. You get the impression that you are staring down a deep well of lore. One that has seen generations come and go.

About an hour later we are invited in. Time check 9:17. The place has been transformed. There’s more buzz now. Patrons are milling in, taking their seats. And the place fills up pretty quickly. The band tonight is a five-man terror squad, led by a black dude called Beal. They have a drummer. I love his grooves, how he fills the spaces between. I like how he fills them with swanky little chops. They have a bass guitar player. This guy is a boss; he makes that bass line walk the talk. The melody guitar is holding court in the hands of a wizard donning a t-shirt written “I made you a cookie…but I eated it”. There’s a guy on the saxophone, who is glorious. The saxophone weaves in and out so gaily, creating such a bewitching, enchanting harmony. Then of course there’s Beal on the mic, with a trombone in hand. In addition, the bass guitar man, the drummer and the wizard of the melody guitar have a mic each. They give Beal vocal back-up. They are a gas.

The band starts out with old songs, renditions from the past. They play Otis Redding’s Sitting on the dock of the bay, Marvin Gaye’s Let’s get it on, Tracy Chapman’s Crossroads, and some other jams from back in the day. Beal’s voice sucks blood from the room leaving the crowd pale but giddy with admiration. For the next 3 hours or so they share the stage with some spoken word artists. They alternate; the MC invites the artists to take to the mic for about 30 or 40 minutes and then calls the band, back and forth. Most of the spoken word poets are rock solid and deep. They are steely. A few rise above the fray and really stare you down. There’s a poet called Khemut. That's her stage name. She does a descriptive piece about young people in a small Spanish town, being recruited to the mines by a coal mining company. I really love her writing, and her delivery. It’s really beautiful to hear a poet who loves words and the feel they make in the mouth, and the sounds they make on the ear. “We live where pigeons come to die…” says the narrator’s mother…Oooooh, that line better be locked up quick; it kills me. Khemut is a hoot, and you can tell that she’s a veteran of the slam circuit.

For the last one hour Beal’s band launches into its own compositions. I’ve never heard of them but they sure have that groove, that kind that uproots you and makes you move. Drinks are temporarily forgotten. Everyone’s on their feet,even the ones with three left feet like yours truly.

Beal is great. He's great because he sings from the soul. He sings from a place of conviction, as though the secret to his very survival is wrapped inside those lyrics and those chords. Around 1 o’clock they announce that they are about to go but someone shouts from the crowd that they should do one last song – Stop that Train, the Wailers. That was a mistake. They kill it. You might think they’d been waiting for it. Maybe they had, but that song wrings out any emotion that was left of the evening. They put their soul to it and go for its pulse. Beal’s voice is escorted by a sax, soulful vocal back-up and a lingering guitar, a guitar that lingers through the room like an erotic spasm through the backbone. A girl from the audience walks up to him and holds his left hand with both of her hands. She actually clings on to him. Since he is standing on a slightly raised platform this girl has to then look up to him, like he’s the messiah. She looks up to him like she’s been a bad bad girl and now seeks redemption. The imagery is powerful. She searches his eyes, but Beal is not looking at her eyes even though he lets her cling on his hands.

I love this imagery because in my mind it illustrates the power of music, the power of lyrics and the written word, the power of that guitar. I am confident that that girl is completely and insanely in love with him, if only for this moment. When the song crawls to an end the crowd shouts for an encore. Beal, all sweaty and smily, looks at them and says, “Next time guys. Next time…Thank you all for coming!” He makes a small bow and exits with his band. What follows them is a ruckus of clapping and cheering.

Bullies. Déjà vu. Life…

Since the dawn of time men have strove to unmask the mystery of life. They’ve sought to understand it. To explain why life is built the way it is. Why we grow old. Why we die. Why we dance to music (isn’t this one odd?)…They’ve gazed into the sky to find answers. They’ve stood on shores and cast their eyes into the sea and wondered what lies beyond the enormous mass of water. They’ve taken voyages to find out. But they’ve mostly wound up without answers – convincing answers.  That notwithstanding, the make-up of life - that very thing they’ve sought to break down and muster - has remained largely intact, unaltered by their scalpels. People still love, laugh, feel pain, forget today as they did nine, ten thousand years ago. Life’s very much like a piece of music which goes on being played forever. Instruments wear out, and the players too, but the notes remain as they were.

People have come at different times who have taken a serious stab at figuring it out. Serious minds. People who’ve thought they’ve laid it bare, found the Holy Grail. Philosophers and priests, poets, rulers, mathematicians... They’ve yapped and left, all of them. But life has remained unmoved. Then there’s that faceless, uncelebrated guy (must have been a peasant) who sat quietly in the back through all this hankering, listening to these famed men argue their theses aloud, about who really got it figured. I imagine he must have been sitting atop a rock, this guy, silently following the proceedings. And at some point he must have climbed down the rock and stepped into the open area, nervous somewhat, as peasants are wont to be in the presence of important people. He must have waited for the chatter to hush before he raised a finger and said, “Gentlemen, life is a revolving door!” And there must have been stiff silence. And shock in people’s faces; they must have thought him a fraud. In a sense he was; he had stolen the ground from under their feet and moved it. For me, a man had finally come who had explained life simply. In a way that I saw reflected in things around me.

You notice that there’s a certain pattern to things, almost a scary one at times. Something starts out and you can tell how it’s going to pan out – every bit – based, perhaps, on something else you’d witnessed six thousand miles away thirty seven years ago. You think there’s too much distance packed in between the two events to even imagine they’d run the same course. But they do. Other times it seems as if something is gone; done with, forgotten…only for it to make a turn and come back around and sneak on you around the next bend. And you feel like you’ve seen it before, somewhere. It’s familiar, like a friend, when it unfolds. Déjà vu. That scares the bravest of us; it’s creepy.

Now, if you think am into anything grand here, just get off the boat right now because you’ll be disappointed. Am headed nowhere particular with this. Am just gonna yap, and waste your time, and sip tea that the lovely amiga gave me till I fall asleep, but…Wait! Before you step out I’ll tell you a little personal story.

Take a step back in time with me to high school. Am a mono, okay? Almost 15. First time away from home for an extended period of time. So naturally, a heady time for me. Am kicking it, eyes closed. But there’s a minor problem. There are bullies in town and they’re wringing all fun out of my life. I’ll skip their part because I think they are cowards. They think they are the shit; I think they are shit. Scumbags in uniform. They are bigger kids than I am, so I figure I cannot take them down in a fist fight…but I have to find a way to cope. So time goes by and I develop a killer bully-ward off strategy. It’s a science, I tell you. Revolutionary, by all standards.

I learn to be quick with the mouth. I teach my mouth to run. I practice insults in front of the mirror. No kidding. I compose and rehearse insults just in case I need to use them in the spur of the moment. I say no to being caught flat-footed by a bully and with not so much as a word to yell to shield my ego or a stone to throw back to ward him off. I become quite the comeback master. What I do is I size you up in a split second and while your mind is still buffering at 40% trying to figure out what am up to, booom…I drop the heaviest expletive I can get my hands on right in your face, aloud. The sort that not only leaves you embarrassed but also leaves a big crater in your soul, if you have one (which I doubt many bullies do). I let that crater fill slowly with bitterness. It works. And in case you are wondering, here’s how to build your arsenal: try random pejorative adjective-noun combinations from the thesaurus when you have nothing to do. Try stuff like ‘insouciant scumbag’, ‘incorrigible creep’, ‘flea-bitten hyena’, ‘nonsensical ragamuffin’ blah blah. Try some in the language you are most at ease in. Keep it real.

Remember, though, that that’s not all you need to know. This baby is for the bullies at school only. Do not take it to the streets. I repeat: do not take it to the streets yooo (heheh I've always wanted to say that)…because the street is a different kettle of fish, with its own rules. With no rules, actually. The street can be crude and primal. It can be down dirty, as I later learn.

So schools close and we are at the stadium watching a football game. Two friends and I. They are stark raving mad about the game. Very loud and hilarious. There’s song and dance. Not far from our terrace is a choir that sometimes sings dirty songs, songs that can make a truck driver blush. And that choir gets filthy when they want. There is a guy seated on the upper row who, when a girl with a big behind passes, composes a hilarious on-the-spot song in praise of the said girl’s assets. His lyrics are so funny everyone bursts our laughing, including the girl in question. Right behind me is a guy with a vuvuzela who for some reason insists on blowing it right next to my ear. You know how loud the damn thing can be, right? I feel like my eardrum is about to split. My liver quivers when he blares it but I can’t move; the place is so packed. But this is not the place to complain, though; nobody gives a hoot here. I know it. I try diplomacy. I turn and tell the guy to go slow on the vuvuzela, or point it sky-ward when he blows it to which he looks at me like I just stole his mother’s pawpaw, and yells something, and a buddy of his quips that I should have known that this is not a church young boy! A few minutes later something blares so loud in my ear I turn without thinking and drop one of my many verbal bombs in the guy’s face. I don’t know whether he lets the insult land or not, but so soon after the words leave my mouth, I feel something heavy land on my skull with a thud. The impact clouds my head and I feel my skull shake on its hinges. Like a wreckage. I didn’t see it but I think it’s a stone. Am wrong; it’s ngoto – fingers folded into a fist and the knuckles knocked hard against the head.

I play that scene in slow motion sometimes in my head when am alone. And I feel that excruciating pain each time.

[Fast forward to March, 2014]

I’ve stopped by a mall to buy something. It’s a Saturday afternoon and kids are milling all over the shopping complex. I still don’t get it why all the fascination for kids with malls… but I can’t complain, if it floats their boats, if it makes them happy. Plus it’s their day off from school, c’mon Sani!

So, I’ve grabbed what I came for and am walking back to the car so I can head out. I hear someone say, “Hey man please leave me alone,” A kid’s voice. I turn to look, and a few meters away is this kid sitting on a bench with his friend. Well, I assume it’s his friend. They could be twelve or thirteen. There are three boys standing behind them, older boys. They seem to be taunting them, from what I can tell. One of the older boys is poking the back of the head of one of the younger boys sitting on the bench with the pointed tip of a funnel fashioned out of paper, and saying something that I can’t quite hear. But the victim is pleading to be left alone. I get the feeling that I know what’s going to happen next, and next, and next. I have seen it before, I tell myself.

At some point, the young guy being taunted turns, out of frustration, I think, and hurls an abuse at the bully…and I find myself whispering under my breath, “Cover your head bro! Cover your head, quick!” But of course all that falls at my feet. The helpless victim has no clue what’s about to happen. He’s sitting there exposed and shit. And then it does. And I feel the pain, once again - the thud, the wreckage, the clouded sight. I yell something to scare the boys away. They take off but am still reeling from that thud, the heaviness of it. That young man on that bench is living my life. Maybe he is me. And I him. And I had just stood there and watched an older boy taunt him…Sorry, taunt me.

When I walk away - to the car - I feel like am walking away from myself.

Just Ask Sam...

Your car will punish you. Yes, if you act up. If you fail to take proper care of her. She will take you to Colorado, or to Mississippi, or Chicago and on your way back she will stall on you – at night - and refuse to go. And the winter cold will freeze and bite your ass. And you will cry and nobody will be around to console you. Or you will post it on Facebook, and a few patrons will like it (hehehe, you catch the irony?). Some of them will poke you on their way out of your page (and hope you poke them back…isn’t that the rule?). You will be miserable, my friend. Helpless. You’ll fall apart. You’ll come face to face with Karma. And you’ll feel her warm breath against your face.

Now why is he harping on about cars and Karma and all that stuff we care so little about? Check him; is his head correct?...Mhh, really? Give him a drink then! You must be saying now in your head. But you know what? Until you come across a man stranded on a lonely highway in the dead of a Winter’s night – a drunk man wailing like a coyote because his ass is fast turning into a block of ice – you’ll keep asking if people’s heads are correct. But even if you don’t drive on highways at night you might still run into Sam – that jolly old drunkard we helped to a gas station - someplace else and he might tell you the story himself. It’s sad but the way he tells it is funny as hell. He lies, and adds stuff, and alters the narrative depending on who he’s telling the story…but who cares, if the story is funny?

Sam is a garage man. He has since become my go-to garage man, you know, because of that one incident. He treats me well whenever I come around. People remember simple acts of kindness shown them in moments of great need so, yeah, I go to him. Sometimes he fixes and other times he refers me to other garage men. The thing I have come to enjoy about visiting garage men, though, is that one contradicts the other. It is very much as in medicine, or the field of criticism in literature. Just when you think you have the answer to something that’s been bothering you, you find that you are mistaken.

[You drive into a garage] A little man tinkers with your machine for an hour and then he asks you for a few coins, and whether he’s done the “correct” thing or not the car runs. That’s how things roll in a small neighborhood garage. A big service station will lay your machine up in dry dock for a few days, break her down in molecules and atoms and when they are done with her she will run for a while and collapse. And as expected, her collapse will depress you…and you’ll rush her back in, again. Now, most people know just enough about cars to get them from the house to the market (and back, of course). A carburetor, to them, elicits as much interest as a guide book to Vienna would have to someone living in Sierra Leone…and so it’s only natural to want to take their car to a big service station when something goes wrong. Well, great mistake, I tell you…but it’s better to learn by experience than by hearsay.

So you go to the service station. And immediately you come smack up against a man dressed like a butcher, a man with a pad in his hand and a pencil behind his ear, looking very professional and alert, a man who never fully assures you that the car will be perfect when they get through with it but who intimates that the service will be impeccable, of the highest caliber. That sort of thing. They all seem to have something of the surgeon about them, these big service station men. They seem to imply, you’ve come to us at the last ditch; we can’t perform miracles, but we’ve had twenty years’ experience. This should calm you down…but just as with the surgeon you have the feeling when you entrust the car to these immaculate hands, that they’re going to telephone you tomorrow, after the engine has been taken apart and the bearings are lying all about, and tell you that there’s something even more drastically wrong with the car than they had first suspected. And they do. It’s something serious, they say. Something serious, what!!! It didn’t look too bad, to begin with!

Anyway, after a few experiences of this sort you get weary. Your faith starts to wobble. You send out feelers and learn that just around the corner from the big service station there’s a little fellow (his place is always in the rear of some other place and therefore hard to find) who’s a wizard at fixing things and asks some ridiculously low sum for his services. An honest man. He has a few extra hands that help him. Great people, usually. And jolly, and blessed with many talents. I remember once when I visited Sam, and a certain man stopped by to ask for directions. I remember one of Sam’s mechanics taking a greasy red pencil and tracing a road for the man backwards while answering two telephones and cashing a check. Can you believe that? And if you think that that is something, wait till you have conversations at these garages. You soon learn that an average handyman in garages of this kind is also a fanatic about something unheard of. Like mosquito farming (hehehe…no; I lie). Never mind.

Back to where we began: drunk Sam is stranded on the road, his blue sedan is in a foul mood. Cause? Negligence. Sam’s. He’d failed to replace her broken catalytic converter. And she (the car) is so mad she’s refused to move. So poor Sam has to hitch our ride to the next gas station…but long story short: a car is like a donkey. Yes she is. What brings on the heat for her is fuss and bother. Feed him properly, water him well, coax him along when he’s weary and he’ll die for you. Everything being equal, it’s not the pressure or lack of pressure in the exhaust pipe which matters – no, it’s the way you handle her, the pleasant little word now and then, the spirit of forbearance and forgiveness. Try that and your ass won’t freeze in the cold like Sam’s.