Rabih Alameddine - The Hakawati

“Absolutely.”

“I have a friend in town we can go see. He’s got a great record collection and killer weed. We’ll spend the evening there. He’s an honest dealer. Every college student needs one of those.”

I settled back in my chair, drank the coffee. I looked at her hands, perfectly manicured. She was wearing much less makeup. I admired her attractive profile, the chin small yet angular, the European nose, small and tilted up. My mother couldn’t compete with that nose; hers was thin, though long and curved like a bird’s beak. My mother was known for her beauty, but it was an altogether different kind. “Do you ever think of my mother?” I asked.

“I don’t know your mother.”

I looked at the clear sky, a much different blue than in Lebanon.

When my father and Uncle Jihad walked into the living room, Melanie almost spoiled the surprise. She flitted about like a three-year-old girl on a sugar high, unable to keep the smile off her face. She wore black hot pants and a sleeveless denim jacket that reached her calves. I sat on the big sofa, facing the door, my right foot across my left knee, looking all too important. My father began to guess at something peculiar. “You’re looking at a UCLA student,” I announced.

My father’s face broke out in unadulterated joy. He leapt across the room, picked me up, and hauled me over his shoulders. I squealed, unable to control my delight. Melanie was jumping up and down. She was about to embrace Uncle Jihad but pulled back at the last moment.

“I’m so proud of you,” my father said from below.

“Well, put me down,” I said, chuckling. He did, but with a bear hug. I had to push him away, because I couldn’t breathe. “Dean Johnson called. They want me. I can check in to the dorms on Monday, and classes start on Wednesday.”

“Did you call your mother?”

“Yes, I told her. We have to pay tuition on Monday, Dad.”

“Okay. Let’s go open up a bank account for you. And here.” He gave me an American Express card with my name on it. “This is a company account. Use it only in case of an emergency. Do you understand? I’ll give you a monthly stipend. I want you to write down every expense you incur. I want to see a monthly report. Every single penny.”

I hesitated, but this had to be the best possible time to broach the subject. “I want to buy a guitar, Dad.”

“No, absolutely not. No more guitars. I told you that in Beirut. You’re here to study. I don’t want to hear another word about guitars anymore. Find another hobby.”

“But, Dad, I’m really good. I need to practice.”

“No whining and no guitar.”

Melanie’s friend Mike lived in a small apartment on Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. As we walked along an open corridor, I saw the blue light of televisions flickering behind drawn curtains, heard the canned laughter of sitcoms. Fonzie on the tube delivered his bon mot, “Aaay!” The apartments all faced a glittering swimming pool. Melanie knocked on a door with the number seven in tarnished brass. Mike opened the door, wearing gray swim trunks, blue T-shirt, and red flipflops. He was tall and muscular, with wavy black hair, a heavy mustache, long wiry sideburns, and small yellow wire-rims atop a predatory nose. A scar as white as marble ran down his neck. “You must be Osama.” His voice was twice the size of mine. “Melanie has told me a lot about you.”

A light-brown mutt jumped up on Melanie the instant she walked through the door. She shrieked, almost stumbled, and hugged the dog. “Bobsie,” she said in baby talk, “you’re still the cutest dog, aren’t you?”

The apartment had an avocado-green carpet, a cheaper version of the hotel’s. An elaborately framed Patrick Nagel print hung on one wall. I sat on a yellow-green Herculon sofa next to Melanie. Small talk ensued. How did I like America? Land of the big and tall and perfect teeth. Was I looking forward to living in Los Angeles? Better than spending every evening in the bomb shelters of Beirut.

Melanie opened a shoebox on the cable-spool coffee table. “Smell,” she said, holding a sprig of marijuana under my nose. “It’s great stuff.”

“It smells great, but I’m sure it’s not as good as hash. In Lebanon, we throw this out. Hash is the pollen.” I sat back and almost knocked a chrome lamp over.

“I don’t think I want to throw out this grass.” Mike smiled as he walked to his entertainment center and put an Al Di Meola record on. Melanie rolled a joint using a contraption with a Stars and Stripes motif. She lit the joint and passed it to me. “This is good shit.”

The first hit went straight to my head. I petted the dog, who jumped up on the sofa and put his head on my lap. “He likes you,” Mike said.

“I had a wonderful dog called Tulip who died of a heart attack over a year ago.”

“Your dad told me the dog was run over by a car,” Melanie said.

“No, no. She had a heart attack. I was in the mountains, and Tulip was with my parents in Beirut. There was a lot of fighting, and all the noise scared her so much it caused the heart attack. I was really upset that I wasn’t there when she died. But my dad took care of everything.”

I took another hit, feeling high yet slightly unsettled. Loose change nestled in the sofa. Mike poured a bag of tortilla chips into a blue crystal bowl — my first taste of Mexican food. “Were you living in Beirut itself?” Mike asked between tokes. “In the middle of the war?”

“Yes. I was even shot at a couple of times. It’s crazy. You can’t imagine what it’s like.”

He smiled as he rolled another joint. “I can imagine. I did three tours in Vietnam.”

I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. I was already stoned, feeling wonderful. “Did you say you were drafted three times?” Melanie was looking at me with a shit-eating grin. She passed me the second joint, stood up, and danced seductively to the music.

“No, drafted once.” He lay back in his chair, legs wide apart. “I reupped a couple of times.” He looked as stoned as I felt. I stared at his muscled calves.

“Why did you do that?” I slurred my question.

“I really don’t know.” He put his glasses back on, took them off, breathed on his lenses, and polished them with his T-shirt. Melanie walked through the beaded curtain into the kitchen and reappeared with a beer and a Coke in either hand, showing me both. I pointed at the Coke. Mike took the beer. “Who knows why we choose what we choose,” he said, reaching over to open my can of Coke. “Maybe because life in-country seemed to be more real than it was back in the world.” He smiled gently. “You doing okay? You need anything?”

“Tubular Bells” was playing, but I couldn’t figure out when the music had changed. Mike was saying something that sounded like “Plei Me Special Forces Camp.” I wasn’t sure I liked the music, even though I’d heard it numerous times before. “Battle of Ia Drang.” Mike’s left hand massaged my neck. “Beirut must have been horrifying, too.” Minuscule creases appeared on his forehead. “Sex and death, death and sex, or vice versa.” He held another joint to my lips with his right hand, and I took more drags. “M-60 machine guns gung ho.” I started seeing Linda Blair’s head rotating, and I couldn’t stop giggling. I tried to apologize to Mike but was unable to stifle my laughter. How could my father forget how Tulip died? My father told me he held Tulip in his arms as she had a heart attack. Now my father didn’t remember how she died. I wondered if I could forgive my father for that. The Nagel print was ugly. I wondered if anybody in the world had a Nagel original. I took a sip of Coke and stuffed my face with tortilla chips. One of the throw pillows had a honeycomb pattern that made me dizzy. I kept attempting to figure out whether it was a black pattern on a white background or vice versa. I laid my head back on the chair, looked up at the cottage-cheese ceiling. I snapped my head back quickly. “I just thought of Hendrix and got scared,” I said loudly. I was alone in the room.