Happy Baby by Stephen Elliott Page B

hired, because, he said, the space wasn’t being used anyway. Our first night together he told me about the desert.
    “Listen,” Toine says to Jessie. “After you left to wash shit from the legs of black babies I bought a motorcycle. You don’t know the difference between a two-stroke and a four-stroke bike, but what I had was a two-stroke. On a two-stroke bike you have to mix oil with the gasoline. It’s meant for driving in places where there are no roads.” Toine hands me the mirror to do my line first. This is also Toine’s way. He knows he will always be left the longest line; he doesn’t worry about it. He never shares a joint, he rolls everybody their own so he doesn’t have to bother passing. “I took a boat to Algiers and rode into the Sahara. After fifteen days I was stopped by a caravan. Saharawi bandits still fighting for the Western Sahara with the Moroccans, the Spanish, and the French. That all ended without any result in 1991. But this was 1986. They took my motorcycle and left me in the dunes to die.”
    I snort my line and hand the mirror to Jessie, who places it over the box filled with photos. She’s holding her leg steady and I’m worried she’s going to start shaking again and send the last of the powder to the air.
    “What happened?” she asks.
    “The desert is growing,” he says.
    “I know that,” she says.
    “You don’t know anything. These people are fighting over sand.”
    “I’ve seen more wars than you.”
    “Congratulations, G.I. Jane,” he tells her dryly. “In El Oued they shovel it from their doorsteps in the mornings. The dunes have buried whole cities. It’s like fighting the sea. Only the bandits know the Sahara. After three days, when the leaders of the bandits came in a car and drove me to an oasis, I didn’t ask them any questions.”
    Jessie is leaning back with her arms at her sides. When I look at her now she looks a bit like my ex-wife, a little taller, a little prettier. Zahava also had black hair and liked cocaine. There was a time when my wife would do anything for some cocaine. If Zahava could see me now she wouldn’t believe it. She always complained I lacked ambition.
    I run my hand under my nose. Toine and Jessie’s eyes are locked together. I bite at the inside of my mouth. I suspect the drugs don’t affect him at all. He just likes to get other people high.
    “It was thrilling, really,” he says.
    Jessie shakes her head then dives into the mirror. “We’re only talking about ourselves,” she says, lifting her face, snorting heavily, running her hands over her head as if she’s just stepped from a pool. She sucks on her finger then picks up the mirror and hands it to Toine with both hands. “What’s the most exciting thing you’ve ever done, Theo?”
    “Hang out with you guys,” I say, and they both laugh.
    “You see why I let him stay.”
    “I like you,” Jessie says. “You’re nice.”
    At night I sleep with my memories and my Italian poster that Toine translated for me. I hear them arguing in the other room. They sound as if they’re in the bed next to me. I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them.
    “Please,” she whispers.
    “Be quiet,” Toine says in a low, selfish voice.
    I imagine Adel, the Nigerian prostitute, hitting me across my face with a whip, cutting my ear. I shake my head. I imagine Toine pulling me down the stairs by my hair. I concentrate, try to make my mind clear. My savings are gone now and I have what I make at the theater. My life before now wasn’t worth anything. I hear Toine’s hand sliding over her body. I hear Jessie’s low cry. I hear Toine say, “I won’t.”
    I could sneak in the doorframe and watch them. I could crawl along the baseboard. If I could love I would have loved by now. To be in love, and want only the best for that person. My wife, Zahava, was always so happy. She never worried. When things stopped working, she spent time with a first-year lawyer named Mickey who had wide