"Me and Sandra are going for drinks at the usual spot tomorrow night and we haven't seen you in ages. Wanna come?"
I put the message down, gave Frank a kiss on his small white head and off he went. Now I wasn't especially flattered by the invitation, as you may have guessed from previous articles I'm not the most social person in the world. But during my time as a teacher here I got to meet a lot of people in the foreign community, and for some reason everyone found me very attractive to befriend and still cling to me like annoying children despite my self imposed isolation. Then again, the majority of them were either Sufi or artists, sometimes even both (these are the worst). They're all intent on having the bizarre outsider 'style' and as you can tell I'm far from normal, so I guess I was sort of like a general to them. General of the superficial weirdo's, woopty-do! Anyway, I didn't particular like any of them, yet till this day I find their attention flattering and hate to disappoint. As much as I am different in many ways, I have yet to kick the all too human need for love and attention.
Cairo is charming in its own insane way. If you can dissociate yourself from the disorder and daily stress somehow, then this is the foreign pretentious artist's haven. Drugs are plentiful and cheap, as a foreigner you're more powerful than any local and you are surrounded by mystic art and ancient Egyptian culture all the time, which really helps when you're tripping on hashish and for inspiration in your next 'project'. Now I don't want you to think I have anything against either art or Sufism. Matter of fact, I consider myself somewhat of an artist and respect many elements of Sufism. But just like Islam didn't create terrorists (though I think it does help plant the seeds, but that's a different article altogether), art and Sufism did not create the pretentious schmucks I was going to see in a few minutes. People tend to take the superficial elements out of things to suit the life plan they have already set a long time ago, or pretty much be bums. Not to say no one is legitimate, it's just that they're heavily outnumbered by the posers.
This is what I was thinking about as I took long strides up the cobble streets of Zamalek to the usual watering hole to meet Amr (the artist) and Sandra (the Sufi) the next night, with my hands comfortably jammed in my trouser pockets. The dim yellow light coming out of the several old fashioned street lamps ignited corners of the otherwise dark street, with some flickering and reflecting off puddles of dog urine to create an especially smelly dream-like sequence. I started to slow down as I approached the street where the bar was and immediately felt the first few beads of sweat forming on my forehead.
I hate everything about going to crowded places; the noise, the smoke (even though I myself am a smoker, I just can't handle other people's smoke), the bad music; but what I hate the most is entering a place. The hipper the place is, the more nerve shattering is my entrance ordeal and this place we were going to was pretty hip. First obstacle: the bouncers. Since I am so self conscious approaching I tend to adopt the look of the kind of person you should not let in by any means, which keeps getting worse as I near them and get daunted by their giant stature and terrifying glares. Though I speak purely English, I still look Egyptian, which means that they can hassle me, which they did. Finally, I am allowed entrance and now must pass phase two of the entrance ordeal; walking in and having everyone stare at me. I feel like the minute I step in to a place, everyone suddenly turns their attention to the door as if a spotlight has just been placed on me and I'm expected to do a little can-can dance. Or juggle, or something...
Thankfully, only a few seconds after I enter I am unexpectedly pulled into a violent hug by Sandra, who had just arrived before me and was standing near the door with Amr (they both got in fine because they're 'whities'). Mere milliseconds after we exchange greetings both them start talking simultaneously about themselves and their latest 'projects'. Not only that, their paces are completely off; Amr with his word-a-minute drawls using as many big, and sometimes fake, words as he can ('artuality'??), and Sandra on a high pitched fast forward. In a nutshell, Sandra had just decided that she will put her 'music' on halt to concentrate on something called 'tantric spirituality', and Amr was telling me about an exhibition he has at one of the off-beat galleries, representing the cultural timeline of modern Egypt using only Pepsi cans and condoms. They were both already stoned out of their minds and gesturing wildly like Italians.
I wasn't really paying attention; instead I opted focusing all my mental energies on trying to make their heads explode, while occasionally nodding and saying something like "yeah, wow, that sounds fantastic". The fact that they kept on going despite my meaningless answers meant they really didn't care if I was interested or even listening, they just wanted to talk about how artistic and spiritual they were. I found that my 'head-exploding' technique wasn't working, so instead I just downed drink after drink. Soon enough I would reach a level where I found what they were saying interesting.
But before I could reach that point I was interrupted by a bad gut feeling that something was wrong. I apologized and walked out of the bar and saw him perched up on the roof of a parked car. This was the very first time Frank had unexpectedly come to me outside my home, so obviously something was wrong. I edged over to him, and looked in the message.
"Your uncle Hamada is dead. The funeral is tomorrow night."
I left immediately in a distracted haze, not bothering to go inside and inform my present company. God knows if I did, they would probably join artistic forces and create a memorial of my uncle Hamada using ice cubes and tampons, and then I would just have to kill them.
To be continued...
