When I protested, one of the gorillas put his mouth next to my ear and whispered, I will only ask you once.
I walked towards the wall. He told me to lift my arms and spread my legs.
He searched my waist and passed his hand between my thighs, over my torso, and under my armpits, then he asked me to remove my shoes and socks. When they were done searching me, they told me to put my shoes back on, and both men stood very close to me and escorted me to the elevator and down to the lobby and out of the building.
I went out and cursed everything around me. I walked across the lawn. The stretch of green was wide enough to hold a chopper; long enough to watch enemies approaching, exposed; vast enough to give defenders time to sound the alarm and prepare. Lawns are the most cunning short stretches of land. Behind that innocent, well-maintained, pleasing greenery there are ruthless gates, conniving rulers, extractors of gold, and drivers of slaves. In those glass citadels and towering dungeons, I see meek creatures, hunchbacked servants, and diabolic yes-men conspiring around water coolers, stirring storms in coffee cups, carrying out orders to steal the sugar cane from the land and the water from the underground, a murderous waltz that will never stop until they dig out the last meal from the bellies of the poor.
I cursed and cursed my way off the lawn and I spat and walked out of those mirages and oases of death to reach the concrete side of things.
JESUS
THE NEXT DAY I waited for Zainab at the entrance of the building. She appeared and said, I am starting to think that you time it.
I never hide the fact that I wait for you, I told her.
Listen, Fly. I am seeing someone. And I think the person will be coming here more often. So, you know. .
Yes, I know. . is that person from here?
Yes, from here.
What is his name?
None of your business, Fly.
Circumcised?
Fly, don’t start with your childish jokes.
Just asking.
Stop it, I mean it. Besides, it is none of your business.
Ah! So you know!
Leave me alone, it is too early for your offensive obsessions.
I just want to know and then I will leave you alone, I promise.
No, not circumcised.
Ah. I am all for interfaith intercourses. They can only result in a sublime secular experience. What does this intact and complete person do?
An academic. I have to go.
Farewell, my dearest Lady Zainab, and do be safe, I said to her as I dropped my cabbie hat with the reverence of a Spanish knight in the presence of an enchanting moor.
You too, drive safe, Zainab said, with grace and chivalry.
I slept for a few hours, and then some construction started up outside. I woke up and I thought of Mary. Poor Mary. They married her to Jesus, and Jesus is an asexual circumcised revolutionary. What future is there to be had in that scenario? I wondered.
I took a shower and combed to the side what was left of my hair. I tucked my shirt under my belly, recalling all the food I had eaten the previous day. Nothing to be proud of, nothing to regret. All the advice that the doctor had given me was forgotten.
BILL
THE DEALER CALLED and so I went to pick him up at his place. His woman waved from the window and screamed: I am waiting for you, Zee baby! And she waved at me and said: Good luck to you, good man!
We drove downtown, made a few straightforward rounds. Are you up for it next week? he asked.
Yes.
Good. I’ll call you. Do you know the industrial area?
Yes, very well, I assured him.
Good. You want cash or some blow as payment for tonight?
Cash.
Right. Fly the cash man. He tapped me on the shoulder and opened the door and I watched him walking away from the car.
I had dropped him at a nightclub. He passed the long line of people waiting to go inside. A few bouncers immediately surrounded him and they opened the door wide, ushering him in as if he were the king of the street.
I drove a few metres and a large man stopped me. He had a thick neck and tottered like a wrestler.
Up Main Street, he said, barely fitting through the door.
Right, I said, looking at him in the mirror. I thought, if my neck got caught between his steroid-inflated elbows, I’d hear my pipes crack before the light changed.
By the friction of the wheels against the city’s asphalt, I felt the heaviness in his mind, and so, to make things lighter, I talked about the weather. Damp today, I said.
He nodded.
I asked him if he was a wrestler, and he smiled and said, No, man, all wrestlers are faggots. I am not into grabbing other guys’ asses and sniffing the sweat between their balls. I am no dog.
I interjected with a comment about wrestling and how it still survives in the Persian peninsula to this day. It must have thrived during the Macedonian occupation. Cultural influences, I continued, and traces of the past can well be found in the most everyday things. Alexander the Great, upon his conquest, ordered his army officers to marry Persian women. . but then I looked in my rearview mirror and realized how all this history talk must have sounded pedantic to the muscles in my cab, so I stopped myself and, to bring things back to the present, I asked, What do you do, then?
I work as a bouncer, man.
At the club behind us?
Yeah.
I just dropped a friend there, I said.
The whole world is there tonight, he said, but I’ve got some business to do in the next neighbourhood. Can you get me to Main Street fast, before the waitress I’m meeting goes home?
I’ll do my best. We drove in silence for a while.
Stop here, he said, handing me a hundred-dollar bill. Could you make it quick with the change?
I pulled out a stack of money from under the seat and gave him ninety-two dollars. He left in a hurry without leaving me a tip.
I drove for a few metres, stopped at a red light, and looked at the bill he had given me. It was as fake as Monopoly money. I did a U-turn and went back to where I had left him, but he was gone. I drove around the neighbourhood and said to myself, Think, Fly. The muscleman wasn’t going home. I parked my car and walked. The first thing I did was look for a dive with a waitress inside and also, judging by the neighbourhood, a poker machine, a couple of old-timers behind pints of beer, and a cigarette machine. I found one. The place was empty except for the staff and, sure enough, the muscleman. He was talking to a woman in a very short skirt and flimsy high heels. He saw me and turned away, but I tapped him on the shoulder.
What?
The bill you gave me is no good.
That isn’t my problem anymore.
I think you gave me a counterfeit bill and you should take it back.
I think you should leave, he said. He pointed his finger in my face, but his eyes focused on a point somewhere between my chin and my belly button. I could feel the threat of his biceps.
Does the name Zee mean anything to you? I asked.
The man’s finger wavered. The woman turned and left. Then he stepped back slightly and said, What about Zee?
I am what you would call his private driver. I could call him right now and he could straighten things out between us. Or I could just give you back your hundred and you could give me back the money I gave you, and your next ride would be on the house.
He nodded. Pulled the cash from his pocket and handed it to me.
Could you wait outside for a moment, he said politely. I have to finish some business with the lady here.
After a few minutes he joined me in the car and said, Okay, back to the club. He sat next to me this time, not behind, and he kept looking at me. Finally he said, Don’t I know you?
Don’t know.