As promised here’s part II of August 2015: A Novel in the Making by The Amazin’ Sardine. Enjoy!
A young man, me, a charming man by most accounts, was stuck in Beirut, it was August 2015. A city of 5s Beirut, 5s going, 5s coming, blocks of brown, a city that eats its babies. I looked to my left and then to my right and ran like, and because, my life depended on it. Ratatatata… Pitung! Ting! Fuckin’ hell… Having turned and hid behind a wall, the young man, who is me, stayed there for a few seconds and then joggied towards a cabana with Cigaras Wa Kou7oul written on a sign above it. He went in.
Flop, flop, flop, flop, flop, the ceiling fan was saying. A rotten orange hue with greenish crust on the sides. A very fat man sitting behind his desk engulfed the chair that I only guess is beneath him so much he engulfed it fully, or else the guy is a levitating Buddha of some sort. But I heard a creeeek when he moved. Yes, there is a chair there somewhere. I take a breath, sting of rotting lemon in my lung. The blistering heat. The walls were sweating. Flop, flop, flop, flop but it’s no use. Our tired almost pumping veins can be seen from across the street. No longer blue. Flop, flop, flop, flop is just my way to assert my presence in this room, said the fan. And then added for good measure: Flop.
Fatman stared at me. More with one eye than the other.
“Shu baddak?” He spoke like road-kill flipping a final flip on rough gravel. “Croz Lucky Strike.” I whispered in contrast in that whispery contrast only I can deliver. He looked at me like I started speaking with tongues. Which I was. But with just one. Mine. Hmmm, he doesn’t understand me. Let me look at you, you fuckin stinkin’ son of mountain peasant folk, I recognize your language. You’re lucky (which is coincidentally my brand of cigarettes as well), yes you are lucky for I speak monkey shithead too.
“Croz Looky” I rectified.
“Eh ma fi Croz”
“Addesh fi?”
“Wa7ad, Tnen, Tlete….”
Packs of cigarettes were thrown at me one at a time. His sweat was rolling down his face and then spread like the Nile once they reached his white flannel shirt. The walls (bouboub!) pulsated a little. I admit it startled me. I kept looking at it in case it does that again.
“Tes3a.”
“Addesh?”
“45 000.”
I hesitated. He just stared at me. The situation was too dangerous for scum like that not to take advantage. A distant Ratatatata… A distant “Kess emmak ya akhoul sharmoutaaaaaa, aaaaaakh….” I looked into the beyond with an opened mouth. In all objectivity, and most importantly, unintentionally, I looked gorgeous. Fat Man licked his lips, his fly was open because his fat was free spirited and could not be contained, and he relocated his massive mash of flesh that was once, tripling bygones ago, his genitalia because he was turned on and tunrned on penises tend to go places. I stole a glance and you couldn’t spot the penis from the stew.
My sweaty hands went with a thrust inside my tight pockets and the walls pulsated and started to ooze. I got several bills out, some of them sticking on my fingers. I took out a 50. Threw it at him. I thrust my hand again, with the rest of the bills vanishing. And the walls moaned a bassy constant whirr of what I can only describe as pleasure. And I felt a little violated. My asshole tightened just in case and I honestly wanted this to be done as fast as possible.
He threw me the change one alf lira at a time.
“Wa7ad, Tnen…”
I heard ratatata previously and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I unbottnoned a button in my shirt, leaned on his desk, showed some glistening grey skin, and I moaned:
“Eumph… Shob…”
“Khamse.” He looked at me, red flashed in his eyes, and green drool with what looked like little black chunks of stones hanged from his lips. He wants me. This is the time. Information.
“Leik? Wenel annas?” I asked.
Fat Man farted with his mouth to convey ignorance and his whole face looked like an ass choking on a turd.
“Khalle el khamse ma3ak… Bas bi sharafak.” I pleaded and then added with a wink “Elle.”
His fat hand dropped on the bills like a tongue. And the ones that did not stick, he grabbed them with his minimally-revolving thick tentacles. And then he said, in a straight forwardness that can only be commendable:
“Farjine ayrak la shouf.”
“Farj…”
“Ayrak, ayrak.” He repeated impatiently.
So that’s how it’s gonna be. I took a breath. I looked at the exit, and at the desk separating us. I calculated the risk and it was null. Fatman probably needed the help of a team of surgeons to separate his ass from his chair. The legs of his chair probably started growing hair by now. He needed a crane to get him on his feet, and a bulldozer to take him out of his shop. I could dance around him for a good ten minutes, prancing, before he catches me to rape me, by then he would be too tired to fuck and would just sleep on my lap, drooling on my leg. If you were starving on an icy mountain and that guy happened to be there, you can eat him for a year.
So I was like, what the hell, and I unbuttoned and let my pants hang to my knees. I have no idea why I became suddenly playful and I actually said Tataaaa as I pulled down my boxers. Fatman became all red, and to each his own really, I’m not here to criticize, but Fatman had a peculiar way for coming off. His fat body would retract on itself like a ball, squeezing whatever remains of his dick between the countless layers of fat, applying pressure on an industrial scale. At first I was all dangly-doo but I admit I got hard when I saw him worked up like that. It’s always nice to be liked. And it came right in time, the moment I got erected Fatman *Boom* blew within himself. The whole room just trembled as he did with several cans of foodstuff falling off the shelves. He groaned, dripping from all over, then his little hands and little legs retracted, and he looked like a breathless overweight spider who has just finished sucking the juice out of a piece of my soul.
“Fi wa7ad fow2 Bank Audi, eddem 3al mafra2. Bineyet al shaykha dorgham, 3al rabe3. Bas bidallo m2aryan bel nhar. Ma ta3mel sot la 7adit el mafra2 w ba3den rkod.” He said breathlessly.
I placed my dick back into my pants the way you pack a Chinese vase in a box. I stroked it, it snuggled in, and went to sleep. And I went out. A whiff of light blue air, it almost feels as if this did not happen. And it did not happen if I want to. Maybe it didn’t. Who knows, I’m crazy, maybe I imagined this whole episode. Yeah, that’s what happened. I imagined the whole thing.
“I told you it will be an adventure.” Said Gloria.
