Read Online News From the Red Desert by Kevin Patterson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kevin Patterson
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know what to think.”
“Be pure in your own heart and actions,” he told me.
When the bald American stands in the line for his coffee, he usually looks a little angry. But he isn’t any more or less impatient whether the line is long or short. I don’t think it would make any difference if he walked in and a free coffee was waiting for him, made already. Or if Rashid had to make it over again three times, like he did on his first day. He would always be the same amount of impatient. He doesn’t usually sit down. Usually he stands on the deck and drinks his coffee. Fazil says he’s been here since before he opened the shop. He’s like that dried-up tree outside his warehouse. He has become part of his place. No wonder he’s so angry.
Just Amachai
The boy, Mohammed, is just a baby. He should be living with his family but in this part of the world, who knows how that story goes? Probably nothing you would actually want to hear. In Thailand he’d have become a monk. So pious and eager to please and so pretty. Shave his head and put him in a robe and he’d fit right in.
This place is swarming with French and British and every other sort of western soldier, and every day is busier than the one before it. It’s just a matter of time before they kick us out of our shack to make room for more barracks. It’s just a matter of time before that Special Forces general, that warrior monk, Lattice, decides that we are an unnecessary luxury anyway, along with the Burger King and the Pizza Hut. Which isn’t to say that I was sad to see those go—my little belly was getting so big! This is not something anyone wants in a masseuse. Back to rice and healthy food. Which is probably what the general was thinking, too. No one wants to be soft here. Not even me. Especially me. After they closed, I lost five kilos and my tips doubled.
You never see the generals here. Drinking coffee at a coffee shop would be too leisurely for the likes of them. The generals should be more like the pilots. The pilots come in here when they’re not flying and they make no apology and do not act embarrassed. They have less anxiety, I think, because they know what they do. They fly their helicopters and if they get where they’re going safely and pick up and drop off whatever they’re supposed to, then they did things right. It’s nice to have certainty like that. I have it. I know when I’m doing my job right or not. I didn’t used to. Which is funny because in those days I was younger and more beautiful and that was my job, to be young and beautiful. If only I could have known that then, I’d have saved myself from the shame and the embarrassment. But this is what it is to get older, isn’t it? Finally we are understanding that we were so stupid to have been so anxious about everything back then. Later is when the real trouble comes. Like now. Things generally do get worse. We Buddhists see this more clearly than the puritans. Life is suffering. The more life, the more suffering.
This is what I think about when I watch the boy moving among the men, never smiling, working so hard and not looking at anyone at all, hauling racks of coffee mugs into the back to wash, and so worried that he might do the wrong thing. But we all do the wrong thing, honey. The tricky bit is that it isn’t usually the thing we think is the wrong thing. It’s the problem with the stern religions. We have Muslims in Thailand,too, but they are not as severe as this. Maybe because the rain comes more often. And we have our monks, too, to be holy for all the rest of us.
Amr Chalabi
The Japanese woman should stop staring at the boy. She knows it makes him uncomfortable, knows it makes him feel like he is sinning, and she keeps doing it, over her cup of green tea. Half-dressed and fresh from the brothel, still reeking of the ferenghee she has been with. I asked Rami Issay two times if he would forbid those women from coming here, but he laughed and said I didn’t know
“Be pure in your own heart and actions,” he told me.
When the bald American stands in the line for his coffee, he usually looks a little angry. But he isn’t any more or less impatient whether the line is long or short. I don’t think it would make any difference if he walked in and a free coffee was waiting for him, made already. Or if Rashid had to make it over again three times, like he did on his first day. He would always be the same amount of impatient. He doesn’t usually sit down. Usually he stands on the deck and drinks his coffee. Fazil says he’s been here since before he opened the shop. He’s like that dried-up tree outside his warehouse. He has become part of his place. No wonder he’s so angry.
Just Amachai
The boy, Mohammed, is just a baby. He should be living with his family but in this part of the world, who knows how that story goes? Probably nothing you would actually want to hear. In Thailand he’d have become a monk. So pious and eager to please and so pretty. Shave his head and put him in a robe and he’d fit right in.
This place is swarming with French and British and every other sort of western soldier, and every day is busier than the one before it. It’s just a matter of time before they kick us out of our shack to make room for more barracks. It’s just a matter of time before that Special Forces general, that warrior monk, Lattice, decides that we are an unnecessary luxury anyway, along with the Burger King and the Pizza Hut. Which isn’t to say that I was sad to see those go—my little belly was getting so big! This is not something anyone wants in a masseuse. Back to rice and healthy food. Which is probably what the general was thinking, too. No one wants to be soft here. Not even me. Especially me. After they closed, I lost five kilos and my tips doubled.
You never see the generals here. Drinking coffee at a coffee shop would be too leisurely for the likes of them. The generals should be more like the pilots. The pilots come in here when they’re not flying and they make no apology and do not act embarrassed. They have less anxiety, I think, because they know what they do. They fly their helicopters and if they get where they’re going safely and pick up and drop off whatever they’re supposed to, then they did things right. It’s nice to have certainty like that. I have it. I know when I’m doing my job right or not. I didn’t used to. Which is funny because in those days I was younger and more beautiful and that was my job, to be young and beautiful. If only I could have known that then, I’d have saved myself from the shame and the embarrassment. But this is what it is to get older, isn’t it? Finally we are understanding that we were so stupid to have been so anxious about everything back then. Later is when the real trouble comes. Like now. Things generally do get worse. We Buddhists see this more clearly than the puritans. Life is suffering. The more life, the more suffering.
This is what I think about when I watch the boy moving among the men, never smiling, working so hard and not looking at anyone at all, hauling racks of coffee mugs into the back to wash, and so worried that he might do the wrong thing. But we all do the wrong thing, honey. The tricky bit is that it isn’t usually the thing we think is the wrong thing. It’s the problem with the stern religions. We have Muslims in Thailand,too, but they are not as severe as this. Maybe because the rain comes more often. And we have our monks, too, to be holy for all the rest of us.
Amr Chalabi
The Japanese woman should stop staring at the boy. She knows it makes him uncomfortable, knows it makes him feel like he is sinning, and she keeps doing it, over her cup of green tea. Half-dressed and fresh from the brothel, still reeking of the ferenghee she has been with. I asked Rami Issay two times if he would forbid those women from coming here, but he laughed and said I didn’t know
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