I seem to have a memory of looking over the wall. I seem to have a memory of watching the sunrise, seeing the pastel pink-and-blue shades of the horizon. I have a memory of fins in water, dolphins or sharks. And I have a memory of birds gliding, sometimes diving steep, bombing dives, and pulling up large flopping fish, only to lose them as they tried to carry them away.
DAMASCUS
“In Damascus they wear long robes. In Damascus they have white, pointy beards and they all look like the guy from Hills Bros. drinking a big cup of coffee.
“In Damascus they cut off your hand if you steal something. They blind you if you look at another man’s wife. They cut out your tongue if you tell a lie.
“In Damascus there are people with milky gray eyes who can see into the future, and you can sit by them in the marketplace during your lunch break and ask what crimes you will commit.
“In Damascus the fortune-tellers are walled in by carpets, tall, bright carpets that vendors hang on high rods. Everywhere you turn there is a wall of carpet, and it makes you think of flying carpets, like you can pull one down, start it up, and fly away.
“In Damascus the women hide their beauty. If they are married, they wear long black sheets; if they are engaged, they wear light blue; and if they are neither married nor engaged, if they are old maids, they just wear plain white. You never see their faces in Damascus. In Damascus the only things you see on women are their eyes, dark and Chinese-looking, and this is what men fall in love with, eyes. See, this is how Damascus is different.
“And they have camels. In Damascus they have many, many camels. And the camels crowd the marketplace, chewing their gums like old men, like Willy who sells the newspapers on Leavitt Street. And they smoke, oh do they smoke — the people, not the camels — they smoke night and day, like crazy. At any time you can smell the cigarettes, burning, rich and powerful, like a fog, sweet and damp. And they sit in their doorways, the people. They sit beneath their arched doorways that lead into their deep, dark apartments, and they smoke, exhaling thick exhaust into the tiny, twisted streets.
“In Damascus, when the sun goes down, all you see are shadows. Those buildings with the arched doorways, those that are built tight into each other, those buildings that form the streets, twisting and turning — at night, in Damascus, those buildings become lit from the inside, and crescent-moon-shaped windows, star-shaped windows, cast patterns on the white walls of the buildings across the way. In Damascus at night, no one speaks, and if anyone walks, his footsteps can be heard echoing down the corridors of street, scraping and shuffling. And the streets are so narrow that someone walking miles away can be heard just as clear as someone right around the corner.
“See, this is how it is in Damascus. I know. I have been there.”
SNAKE DANCE
Papo stepped to the DJ. He cocked his arm. He had that flair in his eyes. The same flair I had seen hundreds of times when Papo was drunk and he was about to kick someone’s ass. I held Papo back. I don’t know where I had him, maybe I just pushed back on his chest. I could feel Papo’s arms — that’s it, I had him by one arm. When I pushed back I had his biceps in my hand, in my palm, his long, thin biceps, like Bruce Lee’s biceps, defined, like the contours of the fenders he Bondoed together when we crashed our cars. Papo was a mechanic.
“What are you, a fucking Indian?” Papo said over my shoulder. I took a quick glance behind me, at the DJ, hoping he wouldn’t say anything back. I’d analyzed the situation. I’d anticipated everything. When the DJ showed up, I took a look at him, judged him: Goatee, a little chubby, doesn’t look like he’d start a fight, doesn’t look like he’d back down. He won’t get drunk. I looked at the DJ again, there, later, made eye contact with him, right after Papo asked him if he was a fucking Indian. I saw a smile, a placating smile, a back-down smile, an “I don’t want any trouble” smile, a “But why do you think I’m an Indian?” smile. I wondered the same thing. Where did Papo get that?
“It’s all right, Papo,” I told him.
“But he’s not doing it right.”
“What?” I asked him. I could still feel his biceps. He was still straining. The fibers of his muscle were fine and hard. “He’s not doing what right?”
“La vibora, the snake dance, he’s supposed to do it right after the dollar dance.”
“It’s all right,” I told Papo.
“No, bro, it’s your wedding. He’s supposed to do the snake dance. Fucking Indian,” he said to the DJ, this time louder. I could hear the clink of beer bottles. Someone was tapping on the side of a glass with a knife, kiss the bride, they were saying. This was a Mexican wedding. I didn’t know where my wife was.
I turned around and looked at the DJ. “It’s okay,” I told him. “Just go on with the dance music.” The DJ nodded.
I gently pushed Papo back toward the tables, toward the bar packed with people I hadn’t seen in years, friends I’d felt obligated to invite, people I could never not love.
“I just want it to be right,” Papo said. It sounded as if he was about to cry. I thought of Papo’s little girl, Crystal, his wife, Bernadette, who’d left him two years before, the cocaine habit that had him running to the restroom every hour, the.25 automatic he kept tucked under the armrest of his Cadillac Brougham.
“I want it to be right for you,” he said.
Papo turned and headed toward the bar. I put my arm around his shoulder.
“It is right, bro,” I told him. “It is right.”
Hours later I was in the banquet hall parking lot saying my last goodbyes. Most of the party guests had left, my in-laws, my father, my uncles. Only Papo was there, in the dim light of the streetlamps, and two other friends, Danny Boy and Mario, friends from many years past. Just to my left, sitting in the passenger seat of the car I had rented, was my wife. I could see her silhouette, the outline of her hair, the white shoulder of her wedding dress. I was anxious to leave, to start my new life.
“Go be fucking married, then,” Papo said. He was smiling, he shook my hand. “Good luck,” Mario said. Danny Boy gave me a hug like I was leaving forever.
“Go be fucking married, then,” Papo said, this time a little louder. “Motherfucker.”
He was standing behind me. I could feel him there. I could see him out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look.
Danny Boy pulled at Papo’s arm.
“Motherfucker!” Papo said. He stepped toward me.
Mario got in front of Papo.
“Just go, bro,” Danny said.
“Motherfucker!”
I climbed into the rental car and shut the door. I could smell my wife. All night she had smelled beautiful.
“What was that?” she asked me.
“That was Papo,” I answered.
In the rearview mirror Danny Boy and Mario were struggling to hold Papo back. I turned onto Damen Avenue. The three of them started fighting, there in an empty parking lot, on the South Side of Chicago.
MAXIMILIAN
I want to tell you three memories of my cousin Maximilian. Two of them involve his fists.