Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity

"But why did we come here?"

"To spend a few hours and move, right?"

"I'm exhausted."

I was too.

With great shame, we checked into the Hotel Casablanca. The room had a linoleum floor and no towels. Hand reached up to turn on the TV. There was coverage of a skiing competition in Aspen. Then:

"Holy shit. Look," said Hand.

The race, the Paris to Dakar road rally.

"I can't believe it – it's on TV here."

"Morocco. Wow."

We watched as the SUVs cut through the Senegalese savannah at 90 mph, bouncing on their huge tires like kittens pouncing on yarn. The camera, above on a helicopter, implied that someone else was remote-controlling these cars – but who? – as they dusted through settlements and fields. But who? There were shots of villagers watching while drawing water from a well, shots of villagers crowding around a car that had lost its left rear wheel. The driver of the car was apoplectic – the camera swirls from the helicopter above, soundless, as the man tore his helmet from his head and threw it on the ground; it bounced high through the golden grass. A boy ran to pick it up.

In the room there was no soap. The room was cold. In the race, on the screen, motorcycles were flying through the desert like wasps. We were in Casablanca, and the TV hung from the corner, and Hand was standing below it, immobile, fists in his pants.

I showered and put the same clothes on, hiding cash, folding, rolling and crinkling in the same pockets and socks. We'd both been alternating our two T-shirts, and now both were unwearable. I filled the sink and lathered shampoo on my spare shirt, leaving it in the grey water. When I stepped out into the cold room, Hand still had his hands in his pants, watching the rally.

"Can you smell me?" I asked.

"From here?"

"I guess."

"No."

I could smell me. Not a bad smell, not yet, but a distinct one, one with something to say. On the street we looked for food. We passed a streetside butcher presenting passersby three whole cows, hanging from hooks, behind which whimpered, under glass, an array of meats and sausages, crowned by a row of small brains, perfectly intact, the color of purple popsicle juice. We walked on.

A man, squeezed into an undersized sportcoat, caught pace with us and assured us he saw us in the hotel and that he wanted to ww-wel-w-wel-elcome us to Casablanca did we l-l-li-like it. A hustler with a stutter.

We told him we liked Casablanca, but not some of the people. Some of the people, said Hand, were kind of pushy. The man agreed readily and kept with us.

Where were we g-g-g-oing? he wanted to know. I had never heard someone stutter in another language, much less stutter in his second language. It was kind of great.

To eat, we answered.

"G-g-go to disco later?" he asked.

"No thanks."

"You like the disco! Very good the disco!"

"Thanks though."

His welcome had worn out. He wasn't a man anymore; he was an insect. Why is he no longer human? He's dehumanized us, so we by turns do the same. He has no choice but to see you as prey.

– You have a choice, stuttering man.

– I do not.

– Then we have a choice.

He changed tactics.

"You you have to look out around here," he said, "boys will come and grab from your pockets," he said, and while he said this, he pulled on Hand's pockets in a way unnecessarily graphic.

We stopped at shop windows to lose him, but every time we stopped, he did too, loitering ten or so feet away, eating his cuticles while waiting for us to start again.

After eight blocks finally he crossed the street, though kept up with us from there, grinning and waving every block or so. It was strange. I would glance back and always he was there. We wondered about his angle. It was not clear what he wanted.

A carfull of teenagers passed us yelling something lewd about the French; they thought we were French, which we didn't know how to take. We passed empty Chinese restaurants and more cafes full of men and their coffee and tweed and soccer and smoke.

We ate in a diner with a door open to the street and a TV yelling the game. Morocco vs. Egypt.

"Jesus," said Hand. "No wonder."

After the French comment, we began wondering about tensions between Moroccans and Europeans. Maybe it was bad, maybe we were hated, accounting for how few white tourists were in the city; maybe we'd be kidnapped and killed -

We pretended that people cared we were in the diner, but they did not. We ate some kind of chicken and rice dish we guessed at on the menu, which was printed in Arabic. The city, here, looked like Chicago's North Side, in the oblique angles of the intersecting streets, the neighborhood bars, the homogeneity, both comforting and discomfiting. It was cool, about fifty degrees, and the food was good. We'd forgotten to eat all day and here we were. It was my first meal without my left back second molar and the vacancy was chasmic and wet and thrilling. Across the aisle from us, two boys, brothers of ten and twelve, had their mouths open, tongues bobbing, showing each other their half-chewed food.

There is no point to stucco. I've done a little bit of it in my job, applying the goop to a bathroom or two and once in a tall hall with a ceiling of apple-cinnamon, and I pitied those who had to live within it. Why we'd want walls that broke skin when scraped – these people, of the apple-cinnamon hall, had kids! – is beyond me. But these Moroccans like their stucco, their textured wall surfaces. Everything is given some pronounced epidermis, something that comes back at you, and it was starting to get to me.

Ten blocks away we passed through a door of beads and into the darkest of bars, long and narrow, full of men and more tweed, more soccer – a kind of Moroccan sports pub. We ordered beers, small and in green bottles. Everyone was drinking from the small green bottles.

We stood and glanced at the jukebox; everything in Arabic.

"Bonjour," said a man at a table by my waist.

I said bonjour. Next to him were nine empty green bottles, neatly arranged in two rows. I looked around and this was custom – the bottles drunk were kept and arranged, as proof.

"You are not French," he said.

"No," I said.

"American," Hand said.

"Ah, AmeriCAHN," he said, grinning. "AmeriCAHN pop music, yes yes! Eagles!" he said, then went into a credible version of the guitar part from "Hotel California."

Hand clapped and the man smiled.

"And Pink Floyd! I like! We dunneed… no eddjoo… kayshun!" He was really going now. "Yeah! Wedun need no eddukayshen!" He was banging the table. Then another guitar solo, but not, unfortunately, one found in that song.

– I want you to come with us.

– I'd like that.

– You'll come with us to Cairo.

– Sounds like a dream.

– But we won't. We don't have that kind of courage.

– I know. There are limits.

We asked him what the large chart behind him was.

"Horses," he said. Some kind of odds chart. "You want?"

We said no before we could wonder why we'd say no. Then we all kind of smiled at each other, and watched the soccer on the TV above. No score yet, which allowed for good cheer all around. There was just one woman in the bar, in the back, head covered, with four green bottles before her. She was strong, bold, or nuts. Hand caught her eye and gave her an A-okay sign. She waved, though puzzled.

I was tired and hated myself for being tired. We left.

"You still want to go?" I asked Hand. We were walking through the quiet city, along a park, dark and extending forever. He said he did. We could get our stuff from the hotel and leave.

"Where?" I said.

"Somewhere. Marrakesh."

"Now?" It was 11:30.

"There's got to be an overnight train going somewhere."