Read Online You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers - Free Book Online Page A

narrowed.
                "Bebbe! Bebbe!"
                "Meester! Meester!"
                A gold sedan slipped in front of us, its driver on the phone and gesturing with fists. Soon the road was narrow and wound through the city, all of Dakar's citizens walking in their flat huge colors and selling small things. Men carried bike tires to repair shops. Men sold meat from carts, while others hoisted sacks of oranges to passing cars. No one was sweating, and no one was smoking. Outside a gated compound, a tousled-haired white tourist in an enormous Fubu football jersey was talking to two uniformed men with assault rifles while a group of students from Italy -- Hand was sure it was Italy -- in crisp white tops and black pants and skirts lightly dusted, whinnied by on mopeds. All of Dakar's residents, it seemed, were selling objects, or moving objects from one location to another -- a city of small favors and short errands.
                The hotel, in the left-middle of Dakar, was dark inside, the lobby low and sleek and smooth with black marble, all of it cool, safe, immaculate. The reception man was tall and wiry and wore the same silver-framed glasses as the two tall and wiry reception clerks sharing his counter. He laughed at Hand's French and gave us his English. We asked for two beds and dropped our bags in the room, the view bright and facing both the city of yellows and whites and to our left the sea, all violet and sugar.
                "What time is it?" I asked.
                "Ten A.M."
                "How do you feel?" Hand asked.
                "I feel good. You ready?"
                "I'm dead but we should go."
                We walked out of the lobby and into central Dakar looking for a travel agent to book a flight out. We wanted all the information on all flights leaving Senegal; we wanted Madagascar or Rwanda, tomorrow. We'd set up the flight now, then look around Senegal today and tonight, ready to fly in the morning. On the street, immediately outside the hotel parking lot, we were besieged, men stepping up and striding with us, matching our pace, walking backward, asking "Where are you from? English?" while shaking Hand's hand. Looking at me: "Spanish?" I always get Spanish, with the dark hair, the eyelashes.
                "American."
                "AmeriKAHN, ah. Welcome to Dakar! You have accident! Your face! Need mask like Phantom! Ha ha! You like Dakar? How long you been in Dakar?"
                "Twenty minutes."
                "Oh haha. Twenty minutes! Very good. Joke! Welcome! Welcome! Do you need taxi? Tour? I --"
                And we ducked into the travel agency.
                Hand tried his French with the first agent but to little effect. We waited for one who spoke English.
                "I thought you said you spoke French," I said.
                "I do. Some."
                "Your dad's French, right?"
                "Not, like, from France. He's not from France."
                "What are you wearing?"
                "What?"
                He was wearing a shirt declaring I AM PROUD OF MY BLACK HERITAGE. On a blond man with swishy pants it looked all wrong.
                "Where'd you get that?"
                "Thrift store."
                "No one's going to get the joke here. Or whatever it is. It's not even a joke."
                "No one will know. And it's not a joke. I liked the shirt. Did you see the back?"
                I nodded slowly, to communicate the pain it caused me. The back said ROGERS PARK WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL.
                An English-speaker arrived and sat down at the desk opposite us. Hand leaned over her desk.
                "We want to find out what airplanes are leaving Dakar today and tomorrow,"