Don't Order Dog (4 page)

Stadium Road Rumuomasi
Port Harcourt
October 16, 1:19pm
Planet Nigeria
 

Jeri –

This place is fabulous.

36 hours since touch-down, and I’ve only been arrested by the Nigerian police once. Long story, but I was able to buy my way out of wahala (That’s pidgin for “trouble” – isn’t language cool?) for less than 6500 naira, which is only something like $50 bucks, though they did make me pay in U.S. dollars. Double whammy.
If you receive any belligerent letters from the Abuja Eko Casino demanding immediate payment on a $1,200 blackjack debt, I suggest marking the envelope “DECEASED” and sending it back. And
don’t
blow up at me, sweetheart, because they were large, muscled, irate and willing to break my hands if I didn’t proffer up the faloose. I’m not exactly sure how they got the impression I own a saloon on Route 66 in beautiful bucolic Flagstaff, but do me a favor and don’t open any packages unless you are
sure
you know who the sender is.

Remember how I used to hang out with the “unofficial” supporters of the Manchester United football team when I lived in England? (I did tell you this, didn’t I?) Remember me telling you how we’d turn the streets into a drunken mass of brutality, and how right before we tore into the supporters of the other team, all of us – hundreds of half-witted bastard men, feeding on each other’s energy and blood lust – would whisper and chant “it’s going to go off… it’s going to go off”?

Jeri, it’s going to go off.

I have the sudden strange feeling that you’re considering cutting your hair. If this is true, please understand that you will not only be disappointed by the outcome, you will deny the surly, wayward throngs who
stumble into Joe’s Last Stand Saloon the most beautiful sight to befall their eyes in recent, middle and distant memory. That sight would be you, my love, hovering behind the bar with those long coppery locks in tow, tucking mischievous strands back into place as you fill glasses with beer and men with envy. Our children will be gorgeous Jeri.

If the word of a wily old Texan ex-pat can be trusted, there’s a bar within spitting distance of my palatial hotel that serves Fortaleza tequila by the double shot and Dos Equis by the bottle. He asked if I’d believe that just last week two American men were kidnapped in that very bar, to which I told him I would believe no less. My odds of surviving this place are roughly one in four. For a double-shot of Fortaleza, I completely accept this.
The enclosed photo captures this place at its best. This may also be considered its worst. Such is the fucking conundrum of Africa.

You don’t need to say it, Jeri girl. I already know.

Ta!

-
         
Mysterious Joe’s Last Stand Guy
 

p.s. The food here is best described as a c
ulinary urinal. Don’t order dog.

“What the heck is faloose?” Joe Brown asked irritably as he sat at the bar and scratched his pale, mirror bald head. The owner of Joe’s Last Stand Saloon sat hunched over the counter, the latest letter clinched in his large hands.

“I think he means ‘money’ Joe,” Chip answered from the barstool next to him.

“Then why didn’t he just say that?” the old bar owner grumbled before continuing to read. In her corner behind the counter, Jeri sat curled up on her barstool, slowly thumbing through a thick novel. Besides the three of them, the saloon stood nearly empty.

“Ah shit,” Joe exclaimed, slapping the letter irritably. “Do I really need to worry about some package arriving? The last thing I need is some goddamn Nigerian casino owner mailing some kind of letter-bomb vendetta ‘cause this guy didn’t pay his damn debt.”

Jeri and Chip exchanged grins as Joe sat with a wide-eyed look of concern stamped to his reddening face. His short, stocky frame was perched tensely on his barstool.

“I think you’re safe Joe,” Jeri said with a wry grin. “I think our mystery writer is just kidding around.”

“Not ours, Jeri…
yours
,” Joe retorted gruffly. “This guy obviously isn’t writing for anybody but you. But don’t think for one second I won’t throw out any weird shit that shows up in the mail. I mean it. If anything bigger than a postcard arrives here smelling like
Allah Ak-bar,
I’m calling the authorities. Jesus Christ, I’ve got casino-running terrorists on my ass now.”

Jeri could hear the inflection of amusement in Joe’s voice. Were he really worried, she knew from experience, he wouldn’t be talking about it. She went back to reading her book.

A minute later Joe dropped the letter onto the bar and slowly shook his head. “Damndest love letter I’ve ever read. That’s for sure.”

“You should read the first two,” Chip mumbled.

The saloon owner pulled the Polaroid from the envelope and squinted at the image. “Well hell,” he exclaimed, holding it close, “you can’t even see him in this damn picture. Good god, why would anyone want to be in a shithole place like that?”

Jeri ignored Joe’s question and pretended to read her book. In truth, she didn’t even see the page in front of her; her mind was fixated on the memorized image of the photo Joe was holding. It was of a busy third-world road captured in midday, the sun hidden behind a gray-green phalanx of low clouds. The road was choked beyond capacity with a vibrant collection of cars, scooters, animals, taxis, and people; all packed tightly together in the chaos of traffic. In the background, a long row of squat, one-story structures were carved into small merchant stalls, each of them filled with myriads of colorful items that nearly spilled out onto the muddy, unpaved road. Nearly everything in the photo appeared to be in rapid, noisy, un-orchestrated motion towards some unseen destination.

Everything except for him.

He stood in the middle of the road, immediately recognizable in his blue
Joe’s Last Stand
t-shirt. As the image floated in her mind, Jeri could vividly recall every feature– his tan, muscled arms casually folded across his chest, his broad shoulders relaxed in a posture of unnatural calm, his body as still as stone in the churning melee of madness that surrounded him.

But no face.

Almost as if it had been intentionally timed, a man moving through the dense crowd stood directly between her mysterious man and the camera, effectively obscuring everything but the outline of his elusive face. Behind the blurry edges of the passing man, Jeri could almost feel his smile beaming back; could almost see his dark, intelligent eyes staring back at her smugly. The fact that his face was so tantalizingly close and yet hidden once again sent a ripple of frustration through her.

“He’s either really good at hiding, or really poor at being seen.” Chip said in a low voice, as if reading Jeri’s thoughts.

“I reckon so,” Joe replied, his mouth twisted in thought. He dropped the Polaroid on the counter and suddenly looked up at Jeri, his eyes wide with excitement. “Say Jeri, I have an idea.”

“What’s that, Joe?” Jeri asked as she slowly marked the unread page and laid the book on her lap.

“I don’t think your mystery man is going to stop writing any time soon, and even though he’s… you know… kind of out there, he writes some pretty funny shit.” Joe paused for a second, his bear paw of a hand stroking at his chin. “Plus he’s wearing our world renowned t-shirt,” his voice dropped into a low, smooth tone as he did his best TV announcer impersonation, “Available for purchase exclusively at Joe’s Last Stand Saloon!”

“Get to the point, Joe.”

“Yeah, right,” Joe stammered. He quickly glanced around the room, his thick fingers frantically stroking his whiskered face. “So what if we posted the letters and photos somewhere in the bar where people could read them? Then everyone would get a laugh out of it. And hell, look around – it certainly couldn’t hurt business.” He picked up the letter and waved it in the air, his face red with excitement. “Christ, all these little college bastards raised on reality-TV would eat it right up!”

Chip, sitting quietly next to him, suddenly chimed in. “And who knows… maybe someone will recognize him and put an end to the mystery.”

“Exactly,” Joe said, nodding his head. He turned and smiled at Jeri.
“So… what do you think?”

Jeri stared quietly at both men.
Why was this a tough question?
she asked herself. Did it really matter if Joe wanted to display some ridiculous letters from a man she didn’t know? She probably wouldn’t give a second thought to sharing love letters from others she’d received in the past – and those were from men she’d actually known. So why were these any different? And yet for some reason the idea felt distinctly wrong, as if she would be exposing something very private; something that belonged just to her.

Unfortunately, at the moment, as Joe smiled earnestly at her, she couldn’t quite identify what that something was.

“Sure Joe. Go ahead,” Jeri said flatly, unable to inject any enthusiasm in her voice. “It’ll be good for the bar. And like Chip said, maybe someone will actually know who this guy is.”

Joe slapped his hands loudly against the bar. “Great! Let’s do it.” He turned and pointed towards the wall at the front of the saloon near the arched window. “We’ll hang ‘em up right over there, where everyone can see ‘em.” He paused again as his fingers worked his chin, his eyes clouded with inspiration. “It’ll be a monument to romance and love… a shrine to our own mysterious ‘last stander’!”

Chip suddenly erupted in laughter, his broad shoulders shaking visibly. From her corner seat behind the bar, Jeri quietly opened her book and pretended to read, ignoring the feeling of nausea beginning to grow in her stomach.

“By the way,” Joe said, suddenly turning to Jeri. “You’re not really going to cut your hair, are you?”

“What?” Jeri asked, glaring at him over her book. “What are you talking about?”

“Your friend mentioned in his letter that you were planning to cut your hair. Is that true?”

“Not that it’s any business of yours, but no. I have no plans to cut my hair.” Jeri went back to her book for a moment before looking again at Joe. “This guy isn’t a mind reader, Joe. Nor is he my friend. He doesn’t know anything about me.”

“Yeah, you’re right… sorry Jeri,” Joe said apologetically, glancing at the letter on the counter. “But that’s good news,” he said with a thin smile. “A short-haired Jeri would definitely
not
be good for business.”

The red-orange light of
sunset slipped through the rustic cottage windows of Augustine’s restaurant and etched the wall like a shimmering, fire-drawn blade. Beneath it, the old panels of mahogany glowed brightly, casting a warm radiance through the dark, densely packed dining room. From her seat in the corner, Jeri quietly admired its fading brilliance, marking its movement as dusk dragged it slowly into nothingness.

“But anyway, even if they offer, I don’t know that I’d accept it,” the smooth baritone voice continued. 

“Right,” Jeri responded as she slowly spun a pasta noodle onto her fork.

“Right what?” the voice rebuffed with frustration. “Are you even listening to me?”

Jeri blinked quickly and looked up as she broke free of her thoughts. “What? Oh… I’m sorry, Rob. I faded out there for a minute.” She smiled apologetically at the handsome man sitting across from her at the small table.

Rob stared back at her, narrowing his dark brown eyes.
“Is something wrong?”

Jeri looked down at her plate. The linguini she’d been molesting was now tightly wrapped around the tines of her fork, but she had no desire to eat it. She glanced back at the long smudge of sunlight on the far wall and shook her head.
“No, just tired. It’s been a long day,” she said quietly.

“Everything okay at the bar?” Rob said as he leaned back and returned to eating. Even in her distracted state, the derision in his voice wasn’t lost on Jeri. In the few short months they’d been dating, Rob had taken every opportunity to drop not-so-subtle hints regarding his feelings about her choice of profession. As a gifted researcher and associate professor of microbiology on the fast track to full tenure at the university, Jeri knew Rob considered her job a bit “pedestrian” by comparison. His tone was now reminding her of it again.

“Yes. Fine,” she snapped.

“Well,
as I was saying
,” Rob continued, his eyes flashing her a dark look. “It looks like Biotin may actually underwrite the grant, but I’m beginning to have serious concerns about how this could affect ownership of the intellectual property.”

“Really?”
Jeri asked with mock curiosity. “What do you think Biotin’s going to ask for?” Of course, she had no interest in the answer, but asking the question would at least buy her several blissful minutes of not needing to speak. She took a healthy sip of her red wine, some expensive new organic blend from California. It wasn’t the best wine she’d tasted, but Rob insisted it was excellent.

Rob’s angular, handsome face immediately turned to a brooding expression as the flickering glow of candleligh
t danced across his pale skin. “Well, I don’t have specific details, but it looks like…”

Jeri watched him with an enthusiastic smile for a few moments before realizing it didn’t matter. Rob’s stare would remain fixed on his plate as he talked at length about the latest snag in his research grant saga. His hands moved constantly while he spoke, meticulously cutting and organizing the items on his plate as if he were laying out samples in his laboratory.

At least she admired his passion. It was the first thing, besides his looks, that had attracted her to him when they’d met months earlier at the university’s alumni summer fundraiser she’d attended with Allie. In her black dress and styled hair, she had caught his eye within minutes of entering the ballroom. She’d even blushed when he’d walked up to her, an arresting James Bond aura surrounding him as he flashed his perfect white teeth and bowed to her in his ink-black tuxedo. Allie had quickly made herself scarce, winking like a teenager at Jeri from across the room and conspicuously mouthing the words “He’s hot!” It had been an intoxicating, nearly cinematic night as they talked, laughed and danced together for almost the entire evening.

It wasn’t until a week later, on their first official date, that Rob had asked Jeri about her profession. Being in
no way embarrassed of the fact she was a bartender, she had told him without hesitation. The cloud of surprise and disappointment that swept across his face had lasted only a second, but Jeri saw it as clearly as a cell under a microscope. From that moment on, she sensed that was exactly how Rob now saw her– small and miniscule, like some lesser form of life.

In the few months since, they had continued to date casually, but Jeri felt the hope of that first great night slowly drain with every subsequent dinner and conversation. As much as she wanted to believe that the handsome, brilliant young man across from her was her soul-mate, she knew his heart and love were inseparably tied to a structured, predictable life of academia, and hers was somewhere else.

“… not that we didn’t consider the possibility of this happening, but the grant itself was expressly written to guarantee the university ownership of the first viable molecule…” Rob continued, his fork excitedly tracing circles above his plate between bites.

J
eri glanced again at the fading blade of sunlight. In just minutes it had morphed into a thin, needle-sharp shaft, its color cooling from ember-hot orange to soft, languid amber. In minutes it would be gone – a final, gentle stroke of warmth in a room of growing darkness. She took another sip of overpriced organic wine and nodded half-heartedly as Rob looked over at her, his hands and mouth in constant motion. His eyes fell back to his plate and Jeri suddenly crossed her eyes and flicked her tongue at him like a child. She inwardly wanted him to look up at her at that moment, to stare in embarrassment or react in some unexpected way that might dislodge the dull ache of boredom that was creeping up inside her. But Rob simply droned on, oblivious of her actions.

There was nothing Jeri hated more than boredom. She would gladly take pain, fear, or exhaustion over the time-freezing, quicksand-sinking agony of being somewhere she did not want to be. Staring at Rob now, she quietly grabbed the edge of her chair and suppressed a rising urge to abruptly jump up from the table and kick her legs in the air. A vivid image of shattering plates, airborne wine glasses, and the wide-eyed gaze of horrified diners instantly filled her mind. The ridiculousness of the image and the moment suddenly overwhelmed her, and to Jeri’s own surprise, a loud, high-pitched laugh erupted from her mouth.

“What the hell is so funny?” Rob exclaimed, nearly dropping his fork. His look was piercing in the dim light.  Feeling like an ill-mannered adolescent, Jeri froze in place, trying to contain the laughter that continued to bubble out from behind her smiling lips as the tables around her turned quiet. She stared back at Rob with wide, watery eyes, terrified to speak for fear of another outburst.

Rob wiped his napkin across his mouth and then tossed it into his lap.
“Well I’m glad to see that the possible failure of this research grant and the financial impact it would have on my departmental budgets is so amusing to you,” he said, his voice laced with ice.

Jeri squeezed the edge of the chair tightly as she sat up, suppressing the frustrated laughter that was still beating
against her chest. “I’m sorry. I’m just in a weird mood tonight.” She could feel his eyes burning into her as she picked up her fork and feigned interest in her food.

Rob sat back into hi
s chair and sighed. “Is there a subject
you
would like to talk about?” he asked, his voice condescendingly sweet as if talking to a child. “I’m sensing my stories aren’t really that interesting to you right now.”

Jeri shrugged dismissively. She took a long sip of wine as she considered the question. What did she want to talk about? She found herself feeling strangely vacant of curiosity, as if every interest had simply and suddenly drained away. Politics? God knows where that topic would go right now. Religion? Even worse than politics. World news seemed too forced, national news too depressing, local news too trivial. And she certainly wasn’t going to discuss work.

Then, unexpectedly, the image of a crowded, chaotic street in Africa suddenly filled her mind. “Do you like to travel?” she asked, masking the feeling of excitement the image had produced.   

Rob seemed to stare through her
as he considered the question. “Depends,” he said as he gently brushed away his stylish bangs of wavy brown hair. “I travel a lot for work, but I usually don’t have much time to really see the places I go. I like New York City, and I think Chicago is nice, though only in the summer. Winter there is absolute hell. The last conference I was slated to attend in Chicago was in January.”
He chuckled as he took a quick sip of wine. “Luckily
I was able to get Professor Olson to go instead.”

“Well where have you been outside of the U.S.? Have you seen any of Europe or Asia?”

Rob nodded as he focused his attention back on his plate. “I’ve been to London and Paris for conferences. London was gloomy, and the food was just awful. Paris? Forget it… a week of pure torture. I’d been warned by colleagues about the rudeness of Parisians, but it was even worse than I expected.” He paused to carefully carve a piece of gristle from his well-cooked meat and move it safely to the side of his plate.  “I haven’t been anywhere in Asia. There’s a conference in Hong Kong in a few months that I’ve been asked to attend, but there’s no chance of me stepping foot there until that new flu has been contained.”

“Of course,” Jeri responded flatly. “Where else?” she asked, prodding him. “Any exotic locations – say, Africa for example?”

“Africa?” Rob’s face suddenly twisted in disgust. “You couldn’t pay me to go to Africa, or most any other third-world country for that matter.”

“And why is that?”

“C’mon Jeri, are you kidding me? It’s not safe.”

Even though she could have predicted his answer, Jeri still inwardly shuddered as a heavy weight of disappointment dropped into her stomach. She nodded slowly as Rob took a sip of his wine, her face drawn taut to contain any trace of emotion.
But of course
, she thought to herself.
What were you expecting? Did you really think that James Bond lived in Flagstaff?
Did you really think you’d find your soul mate here?
  She looked across the table at Rob as he continued to cut, organize and chew his food with clinical precision. He glanced up and gave her a curious smile, oblivious to the cord that had just snapped inside her. Jeri smiled back at the striking face that flickered in the candlelight – handsome, brilliant, predictable… utterly safe Rob. 

“And you,” he asked, staring at his plate as his knife cut away neatly. “Do you like to travel?”

“I do,” she said quietly.

“And how does Africa sound to
you
?” His voice was edged with indifference.

Jeri leaned forward and settled her head in her hands. Her hair glowed copper-red in the candlelight. “I would say it sounds dirty, dangerous… real. Like anything new I think it would be incredibly visceral. And if it’s anything like what I’ve read, I’m sure it would be unbelievably intense.” 

Rob paused in mid-cut and looked at her, trying to read Jeri’s steady, intense glare. “Right. Well, I suppose I’d agree with that assessment – which is exactly why I have no interest in going.”

Jeri glanced across the room. The
last dying ray of sunlight clung weakly to the wall, its former fire now just a whisper of dull light. She watched as it faded into the dark mahogany, evaporating submissively into the void with a final, anti-climactic flicker from existence.

“That’s okay,” she said slowly, her voice cool and crisp.
“You’re not invited anyway.”