Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity

"I could do that," I said.

"Liar," Hand said.

"For a few years I could fish."

"I give you six months."

It was warm. We wanted to swim but we would have to find a beach. And we needed to move. We had a plan.

First, drive south along the coast to the Siné-Saloum Delta to see mangroves and crocodiles, then

Slip into The Gambia, visas be damned, then

Follow the River Gambja up to Georgetown, then

Swing back up, into southern Senegal and

Back in time for a late-evening flight to, ideally, Moscow. Easy.

When we got back to the hotel lobby the car was still missing. Hand asked the rental-car clerk, who he'd been joking with and was now our friend, how many wives he had.

"One," the clerk said.

"Only 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 it 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 open on the backseat, and the cop was sitting between them. I glanced back to see his whole large hand resting disinterestedly inside my bag. It was so odd seeing his hand in my bag. No one's hand had ever been inside that bag.

We passed small walled fortresses with driveways flanked by armed guards.

"Youthinkwe'regoingtothepolicestation?"

"Ihavenoidea."

Hand was periodically turning to the man and trying more French, grasping at some explanation for this, or a plan for the future. I prayed that Hand wouldn't blather anything stupid, though I'd never know what he was saying anyway, so threw that worry to the wind. The man barked orders, with his big dry hand, the one not in my bag, near my ear, pointing left or right at every turn. We seemed to be circling. It was arbitrary. We were dead. "Maybethisissomekindofgame?"

He signaled for us to pull over. I did, behind a taxi, in front of a bar. The cop pointed to a street sign, just in front of the bar. This was, we quickly realized, exactly where he had stopped us in the first place. We'd made some kind of elaborate and misshapen loop to get back here. The sign was a blue circle, bordered in red, indicating that the road prohibited the traveling on it of anything but buses and taxis.

Ah. Hand and I made exaggerated sounds of understanding and approval. "Aaaahhhh!" Hand said, again and again. We were happy to be alive. We had broken a law and that's… oooh-kay! Now we'd pay a fine and be off. We all smiled and laughed. He had directed us around the city for twenty minutes only to bring us to the point of our crime, to demonstrate our misdeed. We laughed and nodded our heads. Stupid us! I wanted to hug the man but didn't know local custom. We would live.

On the road, though, the one that prohibited non-buses and taxis, were dozens of non-buses and taxis. We tried to make this point but then saw no reason to bother. We would pay a fine and move on. But no. Now he told us to go again. He hadn't gotten out of the car. Hand started driving. And now we were scared. Now we would die. "Nowhekillsus?"

"Whywouldhebotherwiththetrafficsignifhewasgoingtokillus?"

We drove on through five or six more turns. The roads were so narrow. Pedestrians wondered why this man was in the car with two white tourists, one with a face like a skidmark.

And suddenly we were in front of our hotel. We had told him at some point where we were staying and he was simply showing us the way.

"Merci," we said.

We were thankful. Our hotel. That was nice. Then he asked for money. We offered him 10,000 francs, about ten dollars. He shook his head. We offered 20,000. No, no, he said. He finally took a 1,000 franc note from our drink-holder and smiled and got out. 1,000 francs was enough. It was about a dollar-fifty. That was, apparently, the going rate. He waved goodbye and walked in the direction of where we found him.

The car stalled. The car would not start. In the center of the city center, in the dead-middle of all Dakar's traffic, the car died. Hand jumped into the driver's seat to start it. Nothing. The honking was first insane and soon symphonic. We pushed the car the fifty feet to the hotel. Our rental man met us in the half-circle driveway, and we parked it next to the Japanese pickup truck covered in mud.