“It sucks!”
“Yeah, but without the fun ending.”
“I am not sure how to cope with this. Airline instructions only covered oxy-
gen masks.”
“What can I say, hang in there.”
“I took a walk yesterday. Only my second venturing out of the apartment in
8 days. I got stopped by a window that said that had a sticker on it saying
“Fortune 500 best companies to work for 2005” I am not even sure my B1/
B2 visa allows me to work. Not that I wanted to work here.”
“And what was that company? Sounds interesting.”
“It was Starbucks. The sad bit is that they wanted someone who was a “peo-
ple’s person” and we all know I am not.”
“Well, you’re funny, easily approachable, socialize famously. But also capa-
ble of throwing a cup of hot tea in the face of a customer asking for an extra
napkin.”
“Recycled napkin. I think they use recycled napkins over there. But the
throwing-the-tea part is not too wrong. Do I my sentences make sense lately?
I feel as if the only point they have is the end at the end of them. And when I
speak, the point vanished altogether.”
“At last you haven’t lost your figure of speech. No one is expected to do well
under the circumstances.”
“It could have been worse. God! I wish it was worse. I wish I was stranded
in Paris with no visa and no resources whatsoever. Would have been much
better material than to have a brother in the US ready to host me and friends
opening their houses for me – all I have to do is pick a choice between
Oregon, Washington, West Virginia, Florida, upstate New York. I should do
more networking in the Middle America, my fan base is weak there.”
“You’re not running for president are you? Well, as much as I support your
literary aspirations, you could always pretend it all happened in Paris. Ditch
the memoir thing, go for fiction. That’s where the brass is. Didn’t you just tell
me with amazement that when you visited Fort McHenry you were stunned
to learn – at the end of the tour no less – that Frances Scott Key wrote the
“Star Spangled Banner” not from the fort, but from a truce ship at sea and
that there are strong suspicions here actually saw the banner.”

“Well, yes, I guess you’re right. So that makes me what? Homeless in Paris.
Amsterdam is more like it. Homeless in Amsterdam – only to be taken in
by a transvestite who is double my age and has incest fantasies. Darn! I just
remembered I actually know people in Amsterdam and they’d take me in.
And they’re not transvestites or double my age. OK, how about this? 911
still did not happen and there’s no major scrutiny at the airports and I end up
mixing up a flight between Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Rio in Brazil. And
so I tell my life in the favelas, running drugs, playing football – I’ll have to
imagine that, as I never played football in my life – and then I clean up my
act and start selling legal stuff on the streets a little like an Oliver Twist, and
then some rich post-menauposal woman sees me and deduces I am close
to the computer-generated image of her long-lost son, and she’d adopt me.
But I’d have to fight with my stepfather’s son who is squandering the family
fortune. Would be a nice Mexican soap opera, then it would be dubbed to
Arabic and it would sweep the nation because it was written by a Brazilian of
Lebanese descent. And then I’d go back to my hometown in Lebanon like all
the foreigners of Lebanese descent do, and then Israel would invade and I’d
be looking for a ship to get me out of there. A bit like now, only reversed.”
“So, with all this, you have trouble imagining… Paris!”
“Well, you’re right, I should concentrate on Paris. Then I end up being the
agent-provocateur of the Arab-Muslim uprising in the suburbs. But I’d have
to hide the fact that I am Christian. Are you sure this is a good time to talk? I
rambled on and on without knowing if it is a good time to talk”
“Well, it was at first. Catch you later.”