Read Online You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dave Eggers
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one?” said Hand.
“Soon, though, more. Soon, two.” He held up a chubby finger for each wife. “Then three and four,” he said, his grin growing with each wife-finger. They both laughed. I gave him a courtesy chuckle. I’d had no idea this was that kind of country.
We watched the lobby’s clientele of white businessmen and wealthy Senegalese, watched the men who served them at the check-in desk, all in grey suits and with identical glasses. We’d been waiting an hour and a half. We wanted to be in a car and driving. To a beach, then swimming, then to a national park stocked with monkeys and crocodiles, then onward and back here by night to catch the flight out. Along the way, today, we planned the giving of about $2,000 to passersby.
Finally the car pulled up and as we got in two boys offered to wash our windows. We declined; they said they’d watch the car when we parked it. We pointed out that we were leaving, not parking. They laughed. We all laughed.
“Do we give some to them?” Hand asked.
“Let’s just move first,” I said. “Out of the city first.”
“I’ll drive.”
“No, I better first.”
We were moving, finally. It felt good to be driving. Around the square we circled four times before deciding which of the road’s twelve or so offshoots to take. Hand found an American-music station on the radio and we left the center and looked for a highway. In minutes we were lost in Dakar’s crowded narrow orange streets. The light was a dry white light. Seconds later we were driving the wrong way on a three-lane, one-way street, with dozens of crossing pedestrians in their unblemished long dashikis waving us back—back, idiots!—and then the car stalling, me with speedy elbows and much grunting executing a three-point turn in the middle of the road, a woman in front of us, an enormous tub balanced on her head, so many women with such things riding their skulls, all staring at us with amusement and disdain, then stall-start-lurch, stall-start-lurch, the honking ceaseless—
And then we were off again—away!—the highway in view ahead—so close! All of Senegal and beyond attainable, Senegal!—and with Huey Lewis on the local radio, coming through with stunning clarity: “Do You Believe in Love?”
Minutes later we were girding for death. What was this cop doing in our car? Or was he a soldier? He was taking us to the place where tourists were killed. If nuns could be killed in Colombia, we could be killed in Africa. Even in Senegal, which hadn’t been billed as particularly dangerous, at least according to the few minutes of web research we’d done at the hotel. But what did we really know? Nothing. We knew they had an airport. We were fools and now we were driving to our deaths in a rental car. Janet Jackson was tinkling from the speakers, asking what we had done for her as of late.
The cop was sitting in the backseat, leaning forward between us, directing our turnings. He was tall, about forty-five, thin, wearing a tan uniform and what looked like Foster Grants. He had been standing in the road directing traffic when he told us to stop. We did, pulled over, and through my open window Hand’s French hadn’t worked at all. Hand had tried to discern our crime, but the man could not get it through Hand’s head. Exasperated, finally he just opened the back door and got in.
Now he was directing us through alleys near the center of Dakar. One of us was going to be dragged around by his penis.
Hand and I needed to put together some sort of plan and were speaking in very speedy English, in case the man knew any, which we were fairly sure he didn’t.
“Thisiswhentheydragyouaroundbyyourpenis,” I said.
“Notfunny. Shouldwetrytobribehimnow?”
“Nonotyetwaitasec.”
This guy, he was one of the bad cops. In Senegal you weren’t supposed to trust the police.
Were you?
Or maybe that was Peru—
“Areyouwatchinghimclosely? Shouldweworryabouthimandthe bags?”
Our backpacks were both
“Soon, though, more. Soon, two.” He held up a chubby finger for each wife. “Then three and four,” he said, his grin growing with each wife-finger. They both laughed. I gave him a courtesy chuckle. I’d had no idea this was that kind of country.
We watched the lobby’s clientele of white businessmen and wealthy Senegalese, watched the men who served them at the check-in desk, all in grey suits and with identical glasses. We’d been waiting an hour and a half. We wanted to be in a car and driving. To a beach, then swimming, then to a national park stocked with monkeys and crocodiles, then onward and back here by night to catch the flight out. Along the way, today, we planned the giving of about $2,000 to passersby.
Finally the car pulled up and as we got in two boys offered to wash our windows. We declined; they said they’d watch the car when we parked it. We pointed out that we were leaving, not parking. They laughed. We all laughed.
“Do we give some to them?” Hand asked.
“Let’s just move first,” I said. “Out of the city first.”
“I’ll drive.”
“No, I better first.”
We were moving, finally. It felt good to be driving. Around the square we circled four times before deciding which of the road’s twelve or so offshoots to take. Hand found an American-music station on the radio and we left the center and looked for a highway. In minutes we were lost in Dakar’s crowded narrow orange streets. The light was a dry white light. Seconds later we were driving the wrong way on a three-lane, one-way street, with dozens of crossing pedestrians in their unblemished long dashikis waving us back—back, idiots!—and then the car stalling, me with speedy elbows and much grunting executing a three-point turn in the middle of the road, a woman in front of us, an enormous tub balanced on her head, so many women with such things riding their skulls, all staring at us with amusement and disdain, then stall-start-lurch, stall-start-lurch, the honking ceaseless—
And then we were off again—away!—the highway in view ahead—so close! All of Senegal and beyond attainable, Senegal!—and with Huey Lewis on the local radio, coming through with stunning clarity: “Do You Believe in Love?”
Minutes later we were girding for death. What was this cop doing in our car? Or was he a soldier? He was taking us to the place where tourists were killed. If nuns could be killed in Colombia, we could be killed in Africa. Even in Senegal, which hadn’t been billed as particularly dangerous, at least according to the few minutes of web research we’d done at the hotel. But what did we really know? Nothing. We knew they had an airport. We were fools and now we were driving to our deaths in a rental car. Janet Jackson was tinkling from the speakers, asking what we had done for her as of late.
The cop was sitting in the backseat, leaning forward between us, directing our turnings. He was tall, about forty-five, thin, wearing a tan uniform and what looked like Foster Grants. He had been standing in the road directing traffic when he told us to stop. We did, pulled over, and through my open window Hand’s French hadn’t worked at all. Hand had tried to discern our crime, but the man could not get it through Hand’s head. Exasperated, finally he just opened the back door and got in.
Now he was directing us through alleys near the center of Dakar. One of us was going to be dragged around by his penis.
Hand and I needed to put together some sort of plan and were speaking in very speedy English, in case the man knew any, which we were fairly sure he didn’t.
“Thisiswhentheydragyouaroundbyyourpenis,” I said.
“Notfunny. Shouldwetrytobribehimnow?”
“Nonotyetwaitasec.”
This guy, he was one of the bad cops. In Senegal you weren’t supposed to trust the police.
Were you?
Or maybe that was Peru—
“Areyouwatchinghimclosely? Shouldweworryabouthimandthe bags?”
Our backpacks were both
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