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| The Portuguese Cistern in El Jadida, Morocco |
I'm at home in the souk of Al Jadida,
talking to bouncers in Riga, and arriving in Yangon without a clue. I
was comfortable on the streets of a city 99% said is too dangerous to visit, and felt harmony in the sandpaper air of a frozen Neptune landscape. But in my home town, among the crowd I hope to join
(travel writers), I sweat and stammer, useless and misaligned. I am
more wallflower, wallpaper, than I ever was in adolescence, and I
cling to ego masturbation, remembering South African townships,
gazing over the Syrian Plain, and Guatemalan border towns where drugs
outweighed human meat and that's all you are.
Pretty faces I cannot talk to drift
around. What would I say? Did I ever tell you about wandering Hong
Kong until I was sure I'd escaped the English language, then going
for food, my consternation at the waiter's rudimentary vocabulary
soothed since it allowed him to tell me I could have pig heart
instead of chicken?
Why does this place, this event,
disassemble me so efficiently? Is it just that the room is too small
and too hot, no seats and no oxygen, leaving me standing/sweating by
the door? Or that a single half-glass of wine costs ten frickin dollars? More likely, it's because these gods of an intimidating industry, conquerors
of a world that hasn't even stamped my passport yet, are just so
damn....NICE! I want them to be pricks, so much easier to scorn, but
they seem so damn welcoming. President, Prime Minister, and King, and
I'd gleefully go to lunch with any of them. I should be able to talk
to them. I would tell them they should move to a larger space. With windows.
Last time, leaving this interpersonal constipation made me dance, but tonight I'm astounded that the glass
walls aren't shattering behind me as I walk through Versailles, where
bvlgari, Jimmy Choo, and other names I know from stories not written
for my demographic, sell shit made in the same damn sweatshops for
$(I have no idea) instead of the relatively honest $10 at Ross.
Models three times a human's height and half the width speak with
anorexic irony as they say “let them eat cake” down to the
mentally disturbed man with a semi-circle spine pushing a shopping
cart full of garbage.
But they don't eat cake, it's a chicken
bone I step over in the BART hallway where the homeless sleep on
their faces while we walk past in clean laundry.
I transfer trains in West Oakland,
where freeway overpasses allow the affluent to pass right over the
graffiti'd streets paved with broken glass and angry fear, where the
only constellations are on their way to San Francisco International
Airport.
I make the mistake of trying to talk to
strangers as I get on my next train. I can't help it. “Welcome to
West Oakland” slips out of my mouth as I wait for disembarking
passengers to alight; I'm such a nice young man. I'm met only by
stony unresponsiveness, most people pretending I never spoke, while
those too close for that act look prepared to fight.
I'm 20% inclined to cooperate with
that, right now. I've become curious what it would feel like with
flesh instead of the heavy bag.
“Oh, right, Americans don't talk to
each other” I mumble as I board. Great, now I AM the crazy guy. I
manage not to add “I forgot, I have to leave the damn country if I
want to meet anyone.”
What's the best medicine for a grumpus?
That's right: a burrito. I had carnitas yesterday (just kidding, it
was today at lunch, I'm being coy) so I opt for pollo asado, black
beans (as if there's any other valid option) and take it home to the
house I am happy to live in, with the roommate I like, the dogs I
adore, and a computer to hammer out a cathartic blog. I try not to
swear, since my mother and her priest read this. Hi Mom. Hi Father
Jeff.
Consoled by rice and beans, soothed by
sour cream and avocado, I can take stock. Tonight wasn't so bad. I
went for a walk, nodded to some people I know, and the forecast looks
promising for a lunch I'd enjoy, with one of the monarchs of the
enticing realm of writers.
I still might feel more at home on the
alleys, calles, mitaani, sadaka, (and other words for “street”
that I'd have to google first) of foreign countries, but I'm pretty
happy on my little Avenue tonight, overly grandiose as that title is.
PS. I know, Neptune's surface is gas,
but Mars is almost a cliché now, and Iceland ain't red.
PPS. The pig heart was good. The
oysters were the gross part of that bowl of slimy congee.
PPPS. “Bvlgari”? Whoever decided to
spell it that way gets a prominent place in line for the guillotine.
PPPPS. No offense to those of you who
prefer pinto beans. Luckily, there's room enough in the world for all
of us, even those of you with poor taste in beans.
I've got more pretty pictures of
Iceland for next time.
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