a cheery smile.
“Come this way.”
She leads Ahmed behind the counter. There’s a door in the back of the shop leading onto a courtyard.
“Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
Uneven cobblestones and oak trees with a ray of sunshine across their leaves. Fond memories. Right at the end there’s a small white three-story building. Music is spilling out of an open window at the top. Guitar from the banks of the Niger River. Inspiration drawn from the Ambassadeurs Internationaux featuring Salif Keïta, to be precise. Ahmed climbs up the stairs with a new-found agility. He knocks on the door with increasing insistence until the guitar stops. A shock of red hair fills the doorway.
“ Yo, brother!”
Palm touches palm and pulls away. Clenched fist gently knocks clenched fist. A ritual greeting from the ghetto where each man weighs up the other.
“ Yo, white boy! What’s up?”
“Hanging in there.”
“You’ve upped your game—for a second I thought you were listening to a bit of old-school Salif!”
“Been practicing four hours a day . . . Come in!”
Ahmed steps into the den. Moth-eaten sofa covered in a tie-dye drape. Trestle table overflowing with stuff—bottles of water, rum, half-filled ashtrays, sheets of paper with words and drawings doodled all over them, books by Philip K. Dick and A. E. van Vogt, Japanese incense holders, a pack of Rizla, and more. The wall is plastered with postcards, flyers, and pictures of naked girls. An old turntable is lying on the floor in the corner. Al has never bought a CD in his life. His vinyl collection reveals the extent of his musical horizons . . . From Yes to Tchaikovsky via Hendrix and TPOK Jazz from Kinshasa. He sits down on a tired sea-green office swivel chair, a throwback to a bygone age of Bakelite telephones, imitation-leather benches, secretaries in mottled skirts, flesh-colored panty hose, and low-cut tops, tits out for the pervy boss. Ahmed takes his place on the sofa—client side—sitting a little bit lower, where he belongs. His eyes wander around the room he hasn’t set foot in for three years. Nothing’s changed. Al gives him a moment to come around.
“Been a while!”
“Let’s just say I’ve had some shit to sort out in my head. It got to the stage where I could barely leave my apartment—couldn’t even go beyond rue de l’Ourcq. Remember Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner ? Well that was me. Only difference being that no one was stopping me from leaving, and I wasn’t trying to escape. I was stuck in my own head, you get me?”
“And what did you do to escape; to get out of your head?”
“I don’t know. My neighbor upstairs was murdered, I went to sleep, and then I came here.”
Al says nothing. He flicks some little bits of paper to one side—his latest compositions—and a small metal-inlaid wooden box from Morocco appears. Inside there’s a load of baggies. He selects one that’s full of handsome, dark-green grass. Ahmed can tell from the color that it’s not from Holland—the weed’s a lot paler. More likely from Thailand or Africa . . . Whatever, it’s proper Mary Jane, none of that genetically modified shit. Al keeps that crap for clients. In complete silence, the master of ceremonies rolls a nice, smooth joint and hands it to his friend. Ahmed lights it, takes a long toke and holds the smoke in his lungs for several seconds before blowing it out in a single plume. He takes two more drags and passes the cone back to Al, who puffs away as if it were a cigarette. They sit in silence. Ahmed can see the world changing around him. Everything in its right place—the colors and smells are the same—but all of a sudden the universe seems charged with meaning. A glass is no longer just a glass . . . It’s projecting its glassness onto the world, its being-in-the-world as a glass. This new perception of things fills Ahmed with a sense that he is magnifying, expanding, tending toward the infinite. Something he finds
“Come this way.”
She leads Ahmed behind the counter. There’s a door in the back of the shop leading onto a courtyard.
“Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
Uneven cobblestones and oak trees with a ray of sunshine across their leaves. Fond memories. Right at the end there’s a small white three-story building. Music is spilling out of an open window at the top. Guitar from the banks of the Niger River. Inspiration drawn from the Ambassadeurs Internationaux featuring Salif Keïta, to be precise. Ahmed climbs up the stairs with a new-found agility. He knocks on the door with increasing insistence until the guitar stops. A shock of red hair fills the doorway.
“ Yo, brother!”
Palm touches palm and pulls away. Clenched fist gently knocks clenched fist. A ritual greeting from the ghetto where each man weighs up the other.
“ Yo, white boy! What’s up?”
“Hanging in there.”
“You’ve upped your game—for a second I thought you were listening to a bit of old-school Salif!”
“Been practicing four hours a day . . . Come in!”
Ahmed steps into the den. Moth-eaten sofa covered in a tie-dye drape. Trestle table overflowing with stuff—bottles of water, rum, half-filled ashtrays, sheets of paper with words and drawings doodled all over them, books by Philip K. Dick and A. E. van Vogt, Japanese incense holders, a pack of Rizla, and more. The wall is plastered with postcards, flyers, and pictures of naked girls. An old turntable is lying on the floor in the corner. Al has never bought a CD in his life. His vinyl collection reveals the extent of his musical horizons . . . From Yes to Tchaikovsky via Hendrix and TPOK Jazz from Kinshasa. He sits down on a tired sea-green office swivel chair, a throwback to a bygone age of Bakelite telephones, imitation-leather benches, secretaries in mottled skirts, flesh-colored panty hose, and low-cut tops, tits out for the pervy boss. Ahmed takes his place on the sofa—client side—sitting a little bit lower, where he belongs. His eyes wander around the room he hasn’t set foot in for three years. Nothing’s changed. Al gives him a moment to come around.
“Been a while!”
“Let’s just say I’ve had some shit to sort out in my head. It got to the stage where I could barely leave my apartment—couldn’t even go beyond rue de l’Ourcq. Remember Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner ? Well that was me. Only difference being that no one was stopping me from leaving, and I wasn’t trying to escape. I was stuck in my own head, you get me?”
“And what did you do to escape; to get out of your head?”
“I don’t know. My neighbor upstairs was murdered, I went to sleep, and then I came here.”
Al says nothing. He flicks some little bits of paper to one side—his latest compositions—and a small metal-inlaid wooden box from Morocco appears. Inside there’s a load of baggies. He selects one that’s full of handsome, dark-green grass. Ahmed can tell from the color that it’s not from Holland—the weed’s a lot paler. More likely from Thailand or Africa . . . Whatever, it’s proper Mary Jane, none of that genetically modified shit. Al keeps that crap for clients. In complete silence, the master of ceremonies rolls a nice, smooth joint and hands it to his friend. Ahmed lights it, takes a long toke and holds the smoke in his lungs for several seconds before blowing it out in a single plume. He takes two more drags and passes the cone back to Al, who puffs away as if it were a cigarette. They sit in silence. Ahmed can see the world changing around him. Everything in its right place—the colors and smells are the same—but all of a sudden the universe seems charged with meaning. A glass is no longer just a glass . . . It’s projecting its glassness onto the world, its being-in-the-world as a glass. This new perception of things fills Ahmed with a sense that he is magnifying, expanding, tending toward the infinite. Something he finds
Similar Books
