Uganda, 1992. Nearly everyone in Africa is black. This, for some reason, is a complete revelation. Maybe it’s the effect of crossing four time zones in two days. Or possibly the heavy, steady flow of alcohol and sedatives into my system. Or the relatively few hours of sleep I’ve clocked over the last week or two. Or eight.
Or maybe it is just the truth—that compared to the rest of this continent, the passengers coming off my flight, myself in particular, are pasty, lifeless, bleached. That we look as if something integral has been removed. The part essential to the whole extracted from us in the night by space aliens or flesh-eating zombies. Or Jerry Falwell.
Deposited into this crowd of brown, I feel the sudden desperate urge to disappear into it.
Like a single drop of milk stirred into a cup of coffee.
Two tall, thin men in light-blue jumpsuits unload our baggage from the plane and wheel it over to the baggage area. The cart only holds six or seven suitcases at a time. After forty minutes of watching the two men go back and forth, I see three of my four bags make it onto the trolley. I am tired of waiting. Whatever was in the fourth can’t be that important.
As I stand in front of the airport scanning names on the dozens of cardboard signs held by dozens of black men, all wearing African-print shirts and Ray-Ban sunglasses, I feel a momentary impulse to break into one of Johnny Carson’s monologues. I imagine reciting the names on the cards as if they were jokes. Then I see my name. The impulse passes. I walk toward my driver and hand him my baggage.
When we pull up to the hotel, I immediately regret allowing the travel agent in Santiago free rein. She was a British expat in her sixties. She’d been working at the American Express Office for more than twenty years. She said she knew just what I’d like and that she’d take care of everything. And she reminded me of Rene, my secretary at the studio. Except that Rene was from the Bronx. Rene took care of everything.
I have not completely broken the bad habit of delegating my life. Not that there is anything wrong with the beautiful five-star colonial hotel set among five acres of tropical gardens. In fact, it is perfect. But perfect is a lie. That much I know. Especially in this part of the world. We have that in common. I decide to stay and enjoy the perfect lie for a day or two before moving on to look for the awful truth. Or at least a more imperfect lie. One I can live with for a while.
I take the concierge aside and slip him too many Ugandan shillings to set me up with a non-government-sanctioned tour guide. I want someone who will take me places the guests in this hotel will never see. Nikudi, the concierge, says he will have no trouble finding such a person and that he can guarantee I will be taken places meant only for locals. He cannot, however, guarantee my safety.
“Do you understand, sir?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “That’s fine.” The prospect of putting myself in harm’s way only adds to the adventure.
“This is not going to be a tour out of The Rough Guide. Once you go off with this person—who is, I assure you, quite trustworthy—I will have no idea where you will be and no way to contact you.”
“Sounds good to me,” I say.
At eight the next morning, I meet my tour guide, Kwendo.
“So you and Nikudi are friends?” I ask after seeing them embrace warmly.
“Brother-in-law,” he says, walking ahead of me so fast I have no choice but to follow.
“You’re Nikudi’s brother-in-law? Are you a tour guide?”
“I take you on tour” is the closest thing I get to an affirmative answer, but I cannot make myself care about his credentials.
“Where are we going?” I ask as I climb onto his motorcycle behind him.
“No problem,” he says, “I take you real Uganda.” And he is out of the gate so fast that the heat slaps me across the face and leaves me breathless.
The colors, sounds, smells, and heat of Kampala are overwhelming. At first it is like a circus or carnival. Swerving in, out, and between trucks spewing putrid exhaust and carrying live animals—chickens, goats, alpacas, and bicycles that double as taxis and a means to carry loads of bananas and bags of rice to market—is a dizzying ride. The relentless onslaught of swarming crowds and mixing smells of dung, cooking meat, sweat, and earth make my head feel as if it is going to explode.
I am relieved when we leave the city. The roads are unpaved, unmarked, an endless expanse of rust-red dirt. Women carry huge bundles on their heads. Women and girls as young as nine or ten. Little boys trail behind them, dirty, naked, trying to keep up.
“Where are the men?” I ask.
“Dead. AIDS,” Kwendo says.
“Not all?” I ask stupidly.
“Of course not. But many. Too many.”
At the Kalangala market, Kwendo has me buy several bottles of waragi, the local moonshine.
“This the best,” he tells me in his heavily accented English. “Made from cassava. Not like that sugar cane shit.” I nod like I know what he’s talking about. I also, as directed, buy several kilos of meat the seller claims is goat, bags full of cassavas and bananas, sacks of rice, and some kind of soft bread. Then we stuff it all into leather satchels that hang from Kwendo’s motorcycle where my legs used to go.
Kwendo climbs back on the bike and motions for me to get on. We drive for several hours with my legs wrapped around Kwendo’s waist. He drives fast. No one here wears helmets, and on several sharp turns I have to squeeze my thighs together to keep from becoming roadkill. The experience is everything I’d hoped for. Thrilling. Exhilarating. Anonymous. I am lost now and there is no going back. I have not a single relationship or responsibility. I have no history. I am my actions and then only insofar as they linger or I leave.
There is a boat waiting for us when we arrive at Lake Victoria. A sort of all-purpose barge with a motor and a bamboo canopy, it easily accommodates Kwendo, his motorcycle, our provisions, and me. It is the complete opposite of any boat you might come across in a hotel brochure for a luxury or even economy tour of Lake Victoria.
The captain and Kwendo embrace briefly—a quick but sincere chest-bump and backslap. The tall young man, who wears a very sharp, long knife tucked into his jeans, turns out to be another relative of Kwendo’s and of the concierge at my five-star hotel. I don’t know why, but I am beginning to feel as if there is another agenda at work here, that my off-the-grid sightseeing adventure is not at the forefront or even background of today’s plan. That, at best, I am along for the ride and have paid several hundred American dollars for the privilege (goat meat, moonshine, and cassava not included).
Every decision I have made today, from the minute I climbed onto Kwendo’s motorcycle in front of my hotel, has been risky and reckless. It would be appropriate to be frightened at this moment. I know this. Intellectually. But I am not. I have no feelings. I cannot connect my actions with any consequences they may or may not have. The concept simply does not exist. I only want to see what happens next. Lake Victoria is enormous. It takes a very long time to cross even a small part of it.
“This is quite a tour,” I say, trying to remind the two men who’ve been talking to one another nonstop in what I can only guess is Swahili that I am still on the boat with them. “So, where we going?” Again, I am ignored. As tour guides go, they leave much to be desired. But I don’t mind. This is not that kind of tour.
We’re pulling into a makeshift marina, and as the captain steers the boat, Kwendo throws me a line. “Tie up your side,” he says. “Can you manage that?”
Little by little, over the course of the day, it has become clear that, while I may be the one with the money (which I am expected to spend freely), Kwendo is the one with the power. He calls the shots. I listen and obey. “Sure, no problem,” I say, having no clue what to do. When the captain cuts the motor, I imitate Kwendo as he jumps off the boat onto the dock and then wraps the line around the ragged-looking iron moorings sticking out of the dock.
“We go to supper now,” Kwendo announces.
“Great, my treat,” I say. “By the way, where the hell are we?”
Kwendo and the captain exchange a look.
“Kenya,” Kwendo says.
We have left Uganda and entered Kenya. I have no passport. Not even a fake one. No one has asked any questions. My kind of people. “We have been invited to dine with family,” he says, as if this simple statement explains our journey.
Obviously we have brought dinner for the family. And breakfast and lunch. For at least the next month. The agenda has revealed itself. I wonder how the three of us and the food are all going to fit on one bike. Fortunately, the captain (“Call me Richard,” he finally tells me) has his own motorbike.
The road signs indicate we are heading toward Kisumu city center, but just as we get close, Kwendo veers off in another direction. “Where are we going?” I yell into his ear, my thighs locked in a death grip at his waist.
“The whites and Asians live in the city,” Kwendo yells back. “The Luos live here.” Luo, I think, and make a mental note. Luo, not Swahili. Big difference. Wars have been fought over such differences—tribal, linguistic, territorial—it’s all the same.
I look around. The “here” he has indicated is a slum. A big one. Row after row of huts made of mud and aluminum siding. Occasionally a concrete slab. Sewage is directed via some kind of primitive aqueduct into the lake. Scenic Lake Victoria: toilet of the impoverished and unplumbed.
“This is my sister’s house,” Kwendo says, stopping in front of one of the tiny concrete squares surrounded on all sides by mud huts. The front door opens and four small children come running out. The oldest maybe eight or nine, the youngest just starting to walk. A pretty but exhausted-looking young woman follows behind them. It is nearly impossible to guess her age. I look more closely: still pretty but probably once gorgeous. Her limbs are long and very thin. She might look emaciated were it not for the basketball-sized pregnancy she is carrying.
Richard and Kwendo drop their packages and each pick up two children, hug them, spin them around. Standard-issue uncle behavior. Then they embrace the woman. She cries and hugs them. For the first time today, I wonder what the fuck I am doing here—in a Kenyan slum, voyeur to this surreal family drama. A feeling? I can’t be sure, but I suspect.
Next time you say you want to see how the locals live, be careful what you ask for.
“Greyson Todd,” yells Kwendo from inside the house, “bring in the packages!” Of course, I think, looking down at the load of bags lying on the ground, I am now the Sherpa. And am I really going to argue? Fine, but not before I have a drink. So I pop the cork out of one of the bottles of waragi and take a long swallow. And regret it immediately. It is like drinking moonshine mixed with turpentine with a splash of triple sec. I recork the bottle and start hauling.
Oma, Kwendo’s sister, lives in two rooms with a dirt floor. There is a sofa and an armchair, both leaking foam rubber filling. I cannot imagine where they all sleep. Oma is cooking dinner over a small fire.
But the place is neat and the decrepit kitchen table is covered with a lace cloth. Care has been taken. The paradoxes confound me.
“Where is the father?” I whisper to Kwendo.
“Dead. AIDS,” he says.
“What about your sister? How will she manage with all these kids?” I ask, feeling like an idiot for being so shocked at something that should be no surprise.
“She will have to marry her husband’s brother,” Kwendo says. “He will inherit her.”
“Inherit her? Seriously?” I ask, allowing my Western judgment to ooze out all over the dirt floor.
“It is tradition,” Richard says coldly. “Her brother-in-law will take care of her.”
“But I mean is she … what if she has …” I don’t know how to ask the question delicately.
“Is sick?” Kwendo spits the words in my face.
“Well …”
“I don’t know,” Richard says. “She does not want to know. Probably she is. And the baby as well. But that’s the tradition. And she’ll give it to him and he’ll give it to his other wives and so it goes.” He spits on the floor, his anger and frustration landing on the red dirt next to my judgment. “Any other questions?”
Probably, but if I’m stupid enough to ask, I don’t remember.
This is what I remember of the rest of that night: that goat tastes better than I ever imagined it could; that Oma dances with me to drum music that seems to come from nowhere and then everywhere, one hut at a time; that I drink toast after toast of waragi with Kwendo and Richard; that I develop a taste for it by the time I reach the bottom of my first bottle; that I have never smelled anything like Oma’s skin—grassy, nutty, pungent, sweet, and dusty with sage and the red dirt floors of her house. And that I tell her she doesn’t have to marry her brother-in-law.
“If I do not,” she says, “I will be thrown out of the family and the community and they will take all my property from me. I will be homeless.”
And after finishing the second bottle of waragi I lie down next to her on the old stained mattress out back behind her house, listening to the drumming, smelling the dirt, feeling so foreign that none of the rules apply.
“Do you have a condom?” she asks.
“No, but I’ll just run down to the 7-Eleven.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she says.
“I’m not stupid,” I say, sliding my hand up her dress and into her panties. “I’m reckless.”
“You have choices,” she says, her breath catching, beginning to speed up, keeping time with the movement of my fingers. “I don’t.”
“I am giving you a choice, and,” I add, stopping what I am doing and withdrawing my hand, “you don’t even have to sleep with me.”
She groans audibly, lifts her dress, and slides down her underwear. Then she turns and kisses me. “Some people don’t believe in AIDS,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Some people believe it is witchcraft. That those who get sick have been cursed.”
“What do you believe?” I ask her, slowly positioning myself behind her, slowly remembering how to fuck a pregnant woman.
“That it doesn’t matter,” she gasps as I slide into her. “That either way the funeral is the same.”
I surprise Kwendo, which I did not think was possible, when I tell him I am staying on here for a few days. He is in no hurry and is more than a little suspicious of the white man who is far too comfortable being taken advantage of.
This is not exactly what he had planned. Especially when, on the third day, I announce my intention to marry his sister. Which I do—in broad daylight, so as to avoid the evil spirits that come to weddings held after dark.
Tradition. Family. Free will. And now, on top of all that, evil spirits to answer to as well.
And so I get a tour of the real Uganda and part of Kenya. And instead of a mask or drum or some other tourist trinket, I get a wife. Which in Kenya means a lot and not very much at the same time. I make promises but I don’t take her with me. It’s the promises that count and the rest that doesn’t mean very much.
Back in Kampala, Nikudi, the hotel concierge, helps me arrange for a real house in Kisumu city center for Oma and her children, and for a bank account that will support her and pay the children’s school fees and her medical costs when she gets sick. The total cost is the equivalent of a new Honda. I add a little for emergencies.
The bank manager, a young, balding Brit, fills out the paperwork haltingly. He examines and reexamines the wedding license. He is sweating through his seersucker jacket. I make Nikudi a cosignatory on the account and entrust him with making sure Oma gets her check every month. Nikudi, the hotel concierge whom I have known for only a few weeks. But what choice do I have? Am I really going to oversee this responsibility myself? A ridiculous notion. And if some of the money makes its way into a different “charity,” it’s still doing more good here, in this place, than it would be in my pocket. Promising to take care of Oma was a good idea. I’ve worked it out to the best of my abilities under the circumstances. I simply can’t worry about the details after I leave.
I am checking out of the hotel. Nikudi hails a taxi and then stares at me, shaking his head.
“When I say I could not guarantee your safety, this is not what I …”
“You just make sure Oma gets her check on the first of every month,” I say.
He nods, shakes his head solemnly again. “For as long as she lives …”
“And after that, all those kids.”
“Yes, right. All them kids.” Nikudi rolls his eyes. As if just the thought of Oma’s inevitable orphans is exhausting. “You one crazy motherfucker. You got a death wish—you know that, right?” he whispers, checking to make sure we are out of earshot of the other hotel staff.
“That’s really no way to speak to a hotel guest …” I pull the name tag pinned to his uniform close to my face. “Nikudi.”
“No, sir. Sorry, sir,” he says with false sobriety. Then he cracks up. “Well, maybe if you are lucky you’ll get knifed to death in Nairobi before you have a chance to die of AIDS.”
“I’m not generally a lucky guy.” I shake his hand. “Thank you for an extraordinary stay.”
As he puts me into a taxi headed for the airport, I press a hundred dollars into his palm and he makes a gesture of refusing it. “You have done enough,” he says. But we both know a hundred dollars will go a long way here, so when I stuff it in his pocket he doesn’t resist. “May God bless you,” he says instead.
He stands there waving as I drive off. When he is out of sight, I slide the gold band off my ring finger and deposit it in the taxi’s ashtray. I have done enough.
Nairobi is big, ugly, dusty, and above all, crime-ridden—making it the perfect and logical next step in my descent into hell. But hell comes in many shapes and colors, some very tempting. And so I choose the Norfolk, the oldest, most colonial hotel in Nairobi. More than likely built on the broken backs of black Africans, I think as I ascend the steps into its grand lobby, passing the ranks of uniformed bellboys. It’s hard to convince myself I am not on a soundstage of some Hollywood studio where some sweeping romantic period epic is shooting. Easier to believe that than to buy that all this could be real. The cool stone courtyards and shady gardens block out the dirt, the reality, the hostility of the street—of the real Nairobi.
I arrive at dusk, settle in, and head immediately to the outdoor bar overlooking the spectacular gardens. I imagine ninety years ago, when the place first opened, you could probably see the beggars at the gates from here. Now there are twenty-foot-high shrubs strategically planted to keep out such unpleasantness.
Though I am in the mood for something harder, I order a Tusker beer—a tribute to the brewery’s famous founder who was killed while hunting elephant. When in Nairobi, I think, raising my chilled glass to him. For most Westerners, Nairobi is a stopover on the way to or coming back from safari. But I don’t feel like moving. I certainly don’t feel up to chasing lions or elephants. Like Lord Tusker. So I stay in Nairobi. And watch as things begin to happen.
I am becoming my own safari. My own hunt. Some days I am predator; some days I am prey. And then I begin to get confused. Because some days I am both. The space between inhale and exhale disappears. Time stops. I forget how to breathe. Just for a moment. But it’s happening more and more. So I have another beer. Tusker. And another. Tusker Tusker.
I think I am growing them. Tusks. No one else has noticed. I shave them off every morning. Pressing the razor hard into my face where they are sprouting, making deep cuts, covering them with Band-Aids I have sent up from the front desk. So no one has noticed. Maybe if I switch to another beer. Avoid the elephants.
The hotel people—which is to say, the people in the hotel—they are looking at me. The Band-Aids, the tusks, I don’t know. So I go out on the street. The street is loud. I go to the markets where black women in white skirts sit on mats in parking lots, weaving baskets and selling baskets. But I don’t want baskets. I want quiet.
The day I stumble into Comtewa Stationers, a tiny antiquarian bookstore, I find what I am looking for. Metal utility shelves crammed with everything from military history to maps to mysticism, religion, archeology, local authors, and Western favorites like Sidney Sheldon and Danielle Steel create aisles so narrow it is impossible for one customer to pass another.
I spend most of my time with the older hardcover editions—old enough to preclude me from attaching my own egocentric imprint to their publication dates. The more esoteric the better. It doesn’t matter that most of those books are written in a language I cannot read. I like to stand in the narrow aisles, pulling them from the shelves, smelling the ink and the dust. Something about the way the pages smell—ink, paper, bindings.
Once I discover Comtewa, I am on a mission. I visit every bookshop in Nairobi. It doesn’t take long. There aren’t more than a handful and at least half of those carry crap catering to tourists—old dime-store paperbacks bought in American or European airports and discarded in local hotels, obviously purchased for a shilling or two by booksellers from the hotel maids and bellboys who find them in vacated rooms.
A few shops, though, become my friends—Estriol, Prestige, the little shop without a name behind the Stanley Hotel. These small storefront bookstores provide hours of calm in the Nairobi storm. Because every day when I wake up, the clouds gather, a little darker each day, and I feel less and less equipped to do anything about them. To go anywhere. To make a change. To speak more than the occasional sentence. So I go to the bookstores.
I do not want to speak and I do not want to be spoken to. I find it hurts my ears. My head. My skin. And people are quiet in bookstores. I like the anonymous, mute companionship of my fellow browsers.
I am at Comtewa, my favorite bookstore, when the incident occurs. I can’t say I remember very much, only that I have been feeling increasingly restless and agitated. For days. Weeks? I have lost track of how long I have been here.
Either things are moving too slow or I am in a panic to keep up. Sometimes I don’t know which; often the sensations seem to coexist. Everyone around me is in my way all the time. The bookstore clerk, a young man with long, graceful fingers whose pink fingernails stand out against his dark-brown skin, is having an endless conversation with a large-breasted woman who holds two dingy, worn books in her hands.
I can’t understand what they are saying, but it is fairly obvious. She raises one book and then the other, weighing their respective merits and asking him endless questions. And he, knowing I’ve been standing there for-fucking-ever, not only patiently but enthusiastically continues to carry on this third-world literary salon.
I really and truly don’t remember the rest. From what I understand, I verbalized my impatience and offered to buy both books for the lady. But not in those words. And apparently, in my frustration, I pushed over a bookcase. Or two. Apparently there was a sort of domino effect. The police came and I was arrested. That part I remember. I couldn’t think of much to say in my defense. So I resisted. And was quickly introduced to the policeman’s nightstick. A single efficient blow that brought me to my knees. The U.S. Embassy was called but there was only so much they could or would do. I was a tourist who had without provocation vandalized a local business and assaulted one of its customers, who, it turns out, happened to work for the Kenyan Ministry of Education. The books were first editions by beloved African poets.
On the advice of the embassy’s legal department, I did what I could to make amends. I supplied the funds to renovate the bookstore, donated livestock to the district of Subukia, tried to convince the injured parties that my behavior was an anomaly. But I had the feeling I was lying.
I decide to leave Nairobi and return to Kampala, vaguely remembering things were better there. Thinking I knew people there and they knew me. Not remembering who. Hoping familiar surroundings will restore a sense of equilibrium. But knowing I am probably wrong.
After three weeks in Kampala I am becoming a superhero. Except I haven’t done anything heroic. Nor do I intend to. But recently I have started developing superpowers. Supersensitive smelling capabilities and ultrabright-light sight receptors. But my most super powerful sense is my souped-up hearing. I hear everything. All the time. The sound of bus exhaust. Ringing telephones and telephones that have not yet rung. The gears of the hotel’s elevators moving between floors and cockroach feet tap-dancing over bathtub porcelain and the scratch of waiters’ pens on their pads and all the music playing on all the Walkmans in every pedestrian’s headphones within a square mile of Me Central.
All of it.
All at once.
And everywhere, always the growling, grinding, wheezing of all the air conditioners and ceiling fans in Kampala desperately, hopelessly, uselessly trying to take Africa down a degree or two.
In the beginning, I was fascinated by my powers. And for a while I was obviously pretty fucking fascinating too. If you can judge that kind of thing by the ease with which genuinely excellent pussy seemed to fall from the sky and land on my dick with very little effort on my part. That was fun. While it lasted.
But it didn’t.
It never does.
And now, it—all of it—is too much. Too hot. Too bright to hear. Too loud to see. And with no way to turn it down, there is no sleep, nothing to stop the onslaught.
Now I am sitting at my favorite little round stone table in the lovely garden bar of my international hotel, surrounded by voices that, in their foreignness, all sound the same—shrill, irritating, grating. I want another vodka. Another ’nother vodka, I guess.
Across the lawn, half a football field away, a hotel gardener wielding a power saw trims the towering, well-groomed wall of hedge that protects the paying guests from what’s out there.
Buzzing. Buzzing. Buzz. Zing. Wave after wave of shimmering rainbow-colored vibrations fly off his magic Black & Decker wand. The vibrations roll toward me, breaking like giant waves, and I feel my chest tighten as I wonder how close they will get. Should I duck or take cover? I am relieved when they dissipate before becoming a serious threat. Crisis averted. But the uncomfortable tightness lingers. Need another vodka.
I rub my hands over the smooth table. It is porous and miraculously cool. I lean over and lay my cheek down next to my hand, pressing my ear hard against the table, hoping to dim the buzzing. This table, I decide, is the only cool place in Africa. I let my eyes roam over the rest of the bar, covering as much territory as I can without actually moving any body parts. Smoking cigarettes. Smoked fish. Buzzing flies. Buzzing. Endless. Buzzing. And Pulsing. And Vibrating. Living. Alive. Banging down my door like the Big Bad Wolf. Driving down my intersecting, interchangeable super highway of fucked-up, misfiring, hydroplaning neural pathways. And there is nothing super about it.
It is Just Fucking Irritating.
I lay my empty glass down on the table next to my face and use my tongue to fish out an ice cube. Held prisoner between cheek and gum, it melts quickly. I slip my tongue through my lips and stretch it out flat like a paintbrush on the table. I lick up and down and around my fingers, tracing the outline of my hand. But I run out of saliva before I can complete the project.
And frankly, I am disappointed that the table—the stone—does not have a more unique taste, something more intrinsic to its stone-ness. I sit up, fall back into the big wicker armchair, and take a deep breath—only to find my mouth filled with the sickly sweet aroma of gardenias budding but not yet in bloom. Want vodka.
The woman at the table next to me bursts out in a high-pitched cackle and I dig my fingernails into my forehead to keep from throttling her.
Yessssssssss. For a moment I am distracted by the pleasantness of the pain.
I let my head fall back onto the tabletop and think of things I’d rather be doing. Running naked through heavily thorned shrubbery is the first thing that comes to mind. But it doesn’t have to be thorns. Almost anything sharp would work. Anything sharp enough to provide some kind of equally intense but opposite sensation to counter the effect of my supersenseless senses. I probably should have stayed upstairs in my room—away from things. And people. But I’ve been trying to carry on a normal life—despite my developing superpowers. And so far I don’t think anyone has noticed.
But today feels different.
And with each new addition to the already cluttered cacophony—spoon clattering onto slate floor, waiter chewing out busboy in Swahili—I know I am coming closer to the edge.
“Sir? May I bring you anything else?”
Without bothering to open my eyes, I pick up my empty glass and rattle the quickly melting cubes in the waiter’s direction.
“Very good, sir.”
A moment passes before I realize I still have my glass raised. I open my eyes and examine the hand wrapped around the tumbler—mine, I assume, since it is attached to my arm. But not exactly the hand I remember. It is puffier, meatier than any hand I remember having. I lay it flat on the table in front of me. I stare at the thick purple vein that rises like a mountain range out and over the top of my hand.
The woman—that fucking woman laughs again. It is an assault. I am sure I can see my pulsating purple vein pick up the pace. I turn and glare at the witch but she is oblivious. Her companion—a fat, pasty turd with an impressively three-dimensional mole on her upper lip—leans in and whispers to her. German. They are German. Nazi German bitches. Pig-fucking Nazi bitches. The women drinking tea at the next table are responsible for the deaths of millions.
A distant voice in my head tells me I should turn away. Because I’ve been known to act impulsively. And then regret it later. Although right now I can’t think of a single example of that. And anyway, this situation is entirely different. These Nazi pig fuckers are guilty of genocide. My homicidal rage is completely justified. I mentally bury the little voice under a pile of biochemical landfill and continue to stare at them, idly turning the hotel silver over in my hand and letting the heavy dull knife and fork clatter onto the table. Picking them up, letting them fall. Picking them up, letting them fall. It is gratuitously obnoxious. Irritating and annoying. At least I hope so. Why should I be the only one to suffer?
The witch shouts something at me in Nazi. Which I neither speak nor understand. Then she spits—just as the waiter is crossing between our tables bearing my drink. The viscous glob lands on his black trouser leg.
He is speechless. She is shocked, appalled, and, screaming at the waiter in German, points a gnarled red-tipped finger at me. Her turd companion is mortified and apologetic and jumps from the table to wipe at the bubbling spot on his pants with her linen napkin.
I smile. I have willed it into being. I have another superpower.
“Madam, please,” the waiter says, trying to shake the prostrate turd-woman off his ankle, “that is not necessary.”
He puts my drink and a bowl of salted nuts down in front of me.
“Will you be needing anything else, sir?”
I have been pressing the heavy, three-tined fork against the bulbous purple vein on my hand, watching, fascinated at how its weight, pressed at just the right angle, forces the one vein to become two—forces the blood to flow otherwise. I poke one of the thick tines into the outside of my even thicker purple vein. It makes a benign indentation. Like poking the Pillsbury Doughboy. How far from the surface could the blood be, I wonder. It is purple enough to see. Purple and pulsing.
“Sir?”
“I’ll have the shrimp cocktail,” I answer without looking up.
The cackling woman has left. Fled. But her cackle has stayed behind. An aural parasite, it has taken up residence in my chest. Like millions of tiny cackling wings all flapping inside me. I can feel them. Cackling, buzzing, building a hive in my chest. Bees. Buzzing. Inside. A giant, humming cancer filled with buzzing, stinging, cackling, crackling insects, angry and desperate to break through the cramped confines of my chest wall. When I put my hand over my sternum I can feel it getting bigger, strangling my heart every time I try to breathe.
The waiter returns with four perfect shrimp—cleaned, peeled, and hung over the side of an ice-filled silver bowl at the center of which is a little dish of cocktail sauce. When he sets them down in front of me, I spin the plate around several times, check under the paper doily, and finally tear it apart, sifting through it all with my hands.
“Sir?”
“Where’s the damn fish fork?” I ask. I am furious. My hands are shaking and covered in cocktail sauce.
“But sir, the shrimp have been peeled, they don’t require …” He stops talking and looks at me. Then, taking my linen napkin, he wipes my hands off—gently, carefully, completely. Cradling first one and then the other in his large, cool, dark hands, he takes his time. As if this were a normal part of his job. Like preparing Caesar salad tableside.
I should be angry. But I’m not. I should feel embarrassment and humiliation. But I don’t. I want to cry. But I can’t.
When my hands are clean, he makes the dirty napkin disappear behind his back.
“Fish fork. Very good, sir. Right away.”
The moment he leaves, the bees are back. Buzzing. I breathe in and feel their tiny feet in my bronchi. Buzz. Wings beating in my alveoli. Flutterbuzz. He is back in a minute. He sets the fish fork on a clean napkin. Then he nudges my vodka toward the far end of the table and puts a very tall iced tea that I did not order in front of me.
“Just brewed,” he says. “Very refreshing.”
“Thank you.”
“Not at all, sir.”
Flutterflutterzzzzzzzbuzzzzzz. I have to do something to make it stop. I have to feel something simple. This—flutterflutterflutterbuzzzzz—is too complicated. Too confusing. I want to feel something about which there can be no argument or debate. Something about which everything will be known. Here. Now. Something that will make all the rest stop.
There is an exquisite and audible pop when the hooked tip of the center tine of the fish fork punctures the fat purple vein. I have enjoyed every delicious second leading up to the final breaching of inner and outer—the sharp poke of the tiny dagger pushing, pushing, pushing. But now that it’s in and the blood is leaking—slowly at first, then faster—the sharpness of the pain has receded to a dull ache. And I am aware once again of the fucking bees. The buzzing that is everywhere around me, inside me, all the time, all at once. I want it gone. I pull the single tine out of my vein but have to tug a little when the hooked edge gets stuck inside. The nearly translucent skin tears easily and the gush that follows brings a windfall of unexpected sweet relief.
It is good. It is a beginning. But it is not enough. So I lay my left arm flat on the table, palm facing upward, and squeeze my fist open and closed. Open and closed. Watch and wait. I sigh, relieved, as my hot, swollen veins finally rise to the surface—the fattest, purplest ones just at the inside of my elbow. So that is where I plunge the fork.
Yesssssssssssssssssss.
For a moment the pain is blinding. Wonderfully, beautifully blinding. I feel the smile spread across my face as my brain scrambles to readjust and rewire its sensory priorities. This pain is precise and delicious and totally satisfying. It is exactly what I have been craving.
Leaving the fork just where it is, and thankful that the perfect shrimp are in fact already peeled, I pick one up, bathe it in cocktail sauce, and lower it into my mouth. The flesh is sweet and tender and has just the right crunch when my molars come together on top of it. And the sauce, redolent with horseradish and fresh lemon, has just the right bite. I eat the second and the third and by the time I get to the last shrimp I have run out of sauce. I hate that. Also, there seems to be a puddle of blood covering the stone table and threatening to run down the sides.
Someone screams. But the sound is fuzzy, distant, cottony soft. I raise my hand to signal for more cocktail sauce and notice the fish fork sticking out of my inner elbow like a harpoon.
Oh yeah, that, I remember distantly. That was a little dramatic. But it worked. Stopped the buzzing.
I yank the fork out of my arm. There is a sudden spray of blood. Like from a drinking fountain. Then it subsides to a generous trickle. There is a commotion behind me, and when I turn I see my waiter running toward me, a stack of clean white napkins in his hands.
My waiter kneels beside my chair and presses the napkins gently but firmly against the oozing punctures.
“Sir?” he asks. His eyes search mine for an answer.
But I don’t know what he wants to know.
Behind us, back toward the hotel, there is more commotion—a siren, some men in white uniforms wheeling a gurney. But none of it bothers me. It is all gauze and honey and a distant wind and I will ride it.
Floating. Held. Safely in safety. Until I feel falling. The panic of the fall. Not me. I am—was—on my feet. Running. To get there. To stop her. Falling.
My feet cannot move fast enough.
“Hold him down.” There are voices and clattering.
Over the green grass. Across the playground blacktop. To catch her falling body.
“Restraints, now!”
She hits the ground.
“No!”
It had seemed so simple—a Sunday, a park, a family. And now all I can do is run with her held against me—red seeping into white—and drive. And make promises to God about everything I will do from now on if He makes her okay.
The happiness of a simple Sunday crushed under the heel of an accident that was no one’s fault but will be riddled with guilt and blame anyway.
God made her okay. But I let go and now I am falling.
“Noooo!” Panic rising. Overflowing. Into consciousness.
“Can you tell me your name, sir?” a female voice asks.
Who wants to know? I think, awake now, eyes still closed. There is noise and bright lights shine through my eyelids.
“Sir, open up your eyes for me and tell me your name.”
What’s in it for me? I think, still shaking from a nightmare I don’t recall. But I don’t ask. It’s not a good way to begin a negotiation.
“His vitals are stable.” This time it’s a male voice—with an African-British accent. “He’s just being difficult.”
Fuck you, I think. If he thinks I’m difficult now, just wait. I feel my personal space is being violated when, without my consent, the asshole shoves his thumb in my eye, pushes up the lid, and shines a penlight around.
“Jesus Christ, what the fuck,” I mean to say. But apparently I have grown an extra tongue or three. “Eeezz Cryy, whaaa” and some drool is what actually comes out of my mouth. My head feels as if I’ve been dropped on it. From a third-floor window. This feels familiar. Like Stanford. Like Thorazine.
I try to shield my eyes but find my hands are inconveniently tied to the bed rails.
“See, his pupils are reactive,” the asshole says.
The woman rolls her eyes at the asshole and shakes her head. “Page Dr. Mijumbi. Tell him his patient is awake.”
“Mr. Dowd? Mr. Dowd?” I feel a cool hand lightly tapping my cheeks. “Wake up, Mr. Dowd.”
“He was awake a minute ago.”
At the sound of the asshole’s voice, I open my eyes.
“Ah, there he is. Welcome back, Mr. Dowd.”
And for a brief moment I experience consciousness in a vacuum. There is no place. No time. No identity. Only the awareness of Is. It is the single most stress-free instant I have ever known. And it is over far too quickly.
“Come on, Mr. Dowd, wake up. Stay with us.”
Dowd. Mr. Dowd. Nope. I am drawing a blank. But the metaphysical ground has shifted. Now I know it is me, Greyson, who is blank. How disappointing. Why, when there are so many other, better choices, am I back to this again?
I feel the gentle tapping on my cheek again. I open my eyes. Because I must have closed them again.
“Mr. Dowd?”
So if you go chasing rabbits and you know you’re going to fall …
Wait. Maybe I do know that name. Dowd. Elwood Dowd. Seer of large white rabbits. Named Harvey. Nice guy. People think he’s nuts.
And then I remember: As far as the hotel is concerned, as far as Africa is concerned, and now as far as the young man sitting in the metal chair next to my bed is concerned, I am Elwood Dowd.
“I am Mr. Dowd,” I say as clearly as I can, which is not very clear at all.
“Mr. Dowd, I am Dr. Mijumbi. You are in Mugali Hospital. Do you remember what happened?”
I think. No. Nothing. “Ra-b-bit?” I ask. Because I have nothing else to offer.
The three doctors exchange looks.
“You see a rabbit,” the asshole says.
I struggle to peel my tongue off the roof of my mouth. “Mo. I she an ashhole.”
The woman doctor giggles. She is pretty. I like her.
“Sense of humor. Very good, Mr. Dowd,” says Mijumbi.
“Yes, very funny,” the asshole says. “But what does the rabbit have to do with it?”
I shrug my restrained shoulders. They hurt. I hurt. All over. Consciousness is overrated.
“He’s hallucinating,” the asshole says to Mijumbi. He doesn’t even bother to whisper.
Mijumbi shoots him a warning look. “I don’t think so,” he says and turns to look me in the eye. “I think the very powerful drug we gave you is still clouding your mind a bit, hmm? And your memory maybe?”
His voice is soft and slow and it feels good in the heavily trafficked spirals of my cochlea. Dr. Mijumbi sits back down in the metal chair, scoots it up to my bed, and pushes his little gold-framed glasses higher on his nose.
“Mr. Dowd, I want you to think back if you can, to earlier today. You woke up. You had breakfast, maybe? Hmm?”
I nod, remembering none of that. “Good, okay, and after that, can you tell us what happened?”
No. There is nothing.
“You don’t remember how you got here? You don’t remember what happened?”
Nothing happened. But I don’t like the way he’s saying it. Not only like something did happen and not only like I should know what, but like it’s bad. Really bad. He knows. He knows something bad happened. But he won’t tell me.
Willa.
And suddenly, panic starts to seep out of all the cracks and fissures of my drugged-up, numbed-out insides. Before I can stick my finger in the dike, all the empty spaces are flooded with loss. Before I can take a breath, I am drowning.
“What is it? What happened?” Mijumbi asks, concerned.
“Willa?”
I am twisting and turning, trying to get up, but nothing is working right. Grunting and twisting and the pain that rips through my right shoulder is sharp and searing.
“It hurts.”
“Where does it hurt?” he asks, racing to my bedside.
“I don’t know,” I lie.
Everywhere. All the time.
“What does it feel like?”
“I. Don’t. Know,” I sob, lying again.
In the mornings, it is an endless ocean of bottomless loss. By late afternoon, every cell in my body has a bleeding hangnail. But I don’t say that. I never say that.
“Mr. Dowd, who is Willa?”
“I don’t know.” The biggest lie.
I feel sick. I turn my head away from Mijumbi and try to vomit over the other side of the bed, but my arm gets in the way. Cocktail sauce and bits of shrimp splash everywhere. On me, on the bed, on the floor, and on the asshole’s shoes. Every cloud has its silver lining.
I think I am crying, but I am not sure.
“Un-die my fuck-ing hans!” I try to scream.
“Of course.” Dr. Mijumbi, despite the crushing heat, wears a crisp white shirt and navy blazer. He unties one arm and then calmly walks around the bed through the muck to untie the other. The asshole looks horrified. “Dr. Ngasi, would you please go find someone to clean this up and bring Mr. Dowd some fresh bedding?” The doctor, who upon closer examination looks like a kid in an expensive prep school uniform, helps me sit up. “Why did you try to hurt yourself?” he asks.
I glance over at my bandaged hand and arm. I carefully lift the white gauze and look underneath at the mess of crisscrossed black stitching. “Chrisss, I’ll ne’er be able ’a wear a stra’less dress ’gain.”
“You almost bled to death, Mr. Dowd.”
“Really?” I try extremely unsuccessfully to snap my fingers. “Bud almos’ doden’ coun’ does it?”
“Was that your intention?” he asks gently, laying my arm back on the pillow.
“No,” I say sincerely, “I wuz. Trying to. Kill. The bees.”
Dr. Mijumbi quickly scans the brief report in front of him. “There is no mention of bees at the hotel from the rescue workers or hotel staff or anybody who—”
“No,” I say and point to my chest, “that’s because they … they live in here.”
The doctor nods. I take his hand and place his palm on my sternum. “They … they are quiet now. Because of the pain. But,” I close my eyes and whisper, “if you concentra you can still feel the buzzing. Nothing like before. They are res-ing.”
The doctor nods again and withdraws his hand. “So, you stabbed yourself to stop the excruciating internal pain?”
I nod and feel a tear form in the corner of my eye.
“And I’m guessing you haven’t slept in days? Maybe longer?”
“Can’d rememba,” I say groggily.
“Take him off the Thorazine,” Mujimbi tells his minions. “He’s not schizophrenic.”
“Then what—” the asshole challenges immediately.
“I believe Mr. Dowd has had an acute mixed manic episode. I doubt it’s his first. The psychosis is just a symptom. Start him on lithium, six hundred milligrams.”
New York, 1994. We are a no-touching unit. We have a no-touching policy. No touching, no hugging, no violation of personal space. Glenda does not feel this policy applies to her. Watching her violate the no-touching policy provides endless minutes of fun. I don’t report her when I am the one being violated. Lately she has begun tracing her index finger up and down my chest, my back, my thigh, my ass—usually first thing in the morning while we are standing in line waiting to have our vitals taken. She stands on her tiptoes and with minty fresh breath tells me what she’d like to do to me as she runs her index finger along the waistband of my pajamas. Lately my blood pressure has been higher than normal. Just a little higher. They wonder if it could be some rare side effect of the shock. They don’t seem to notice that the huge hard-on I have corresponds to the increase in blood pressure. They are idiots. No touching, my ass.