Ken Kesey - Demon Box

"Now! Snap me!"

He snatched the Polaroid print away before I could coat it. Its impact on him was incredible. As he studied his developing image on the little square of paper, we could actually see his face begin to change and shift. He set his jaw, then his shoulders. He worked his features until they presented once again the countenance of a very cool cat, watch out. His breathing slowed. His color returned. When he had it all together, as they say, be damned if the fucker didn't demand an extra five pounds!

Another huge hassle. Thud laughed scornfully at our deal with Uncle Marag. Who is Marag? Where is he, this Marag, with the so-called car's five pounds promised, eh? Why isn't this Marag here to complete the transaction? Okay, okay, Jack sighs and hands over the five. No no, that was just the usual fare! (Thud glanced again at his photograph for reassurance; yep, he was still there.) Another five was what he was talking about, for all the time we made him wait. I was getting tired of it. I said okay, here's the extra five. But I get the picture back.

He gasped.

Hadn't that been the deal? I gave you picture; you gave us nice ride and no extra? He blinked, looking around. He wasn't alone. Some of the other cabbies and hustlers had ambled over to see what was happening. They were all grinning. It was very clear what was happening. Thud was cornered.

To save face he had to give face up.

He snatched the bill from me and slapped the photo down on the street (face up) and roared off in his taxi, shoulders back, stomach sucked in, head held high. Almost made you proud of him.

Later that night, however, the power of the picture must have run down. He came knocking on my cabana door with one of those little metal outfits you throw away when your pack of Polaroids is empty. A little flimsy black box. He'd found it under the seat where I'd kicked it, my bag already full to the brim with the print peelings and all that other Polaroid waste.

He grinned triumphantly, holding the little box high in the air.

He would trade, he carefully explained, this obviously valuable photographic attachment for the picture, which could be of no possible value to me. He stood, grinning and waiting. How could I explain to him that I had never coated his picture and that the prints from these special positive-negative Polaroid films fade blank in minutes without that coating goop? Besides, that other deal had gone down. So I told him no dice; he could keep the valuable photographic attachment, I'd keep the picture, albeit nonexistent.

"No dice?" he cried. "No dice is no trade?"

"No trade is what no dice is. No picture. No deal."

He was dumbfounded. He stared at me with a new respect; here was someone as bullheaded as he was. He cursed and threatened me for a while, in Arabic and English and three or four other fractional languages, brandishing a black metal box that was as empty as his threats.

When he finally stalked off, bewildered and pissed, I made a mental note to henceforth check both ways very carefully before crossing any busy Egyptian thoroughfares.

Back from supper I finish washing my negatives in the little gallon bucket of chemicals you have to carry with this kind of Polaroid film. A hassle and a nuisance.

I bought this complicated process because of all the photogs over the years who have sought to snare my likeness – affronting my view, plaguing my poise, making me stumble where I had walked sure before, always promising, "I know it's a bit of a bother but I'll send you prints! - only to disappear into their darkrooms never to be seen again.

I thought this process would be more equitable; the subjects could have their print, I'd have the negative. But piss on it. It's just too much hassle.

When you got nothin' to say, my Great-uncle Dicker advised me once in a kind of Arkie ode to optimism, go ahead and say it.

"Because it's like having nothin' to serve for supper but say a pot of water and some salt; could be after you get the water boiling and salted, some colored cook on a potato wagon might aimlessly run over one o' yer prize hens… ob -ligate herself to you."

Advice I have followed, as a potboiler of aimless words, to many a last-minute successful stew.

"How-and-ever," Uncle Dicker must have amended, "don't invite a bunch over to take supper on the basis of this could-be. Help is just too blessed unree- lie -abul!" An amendment I must have forgotten, because here I am trying to write in Egypt, with a table full of invited readers, bellies growling, salty pots steaming, but no sign of any last-minute Jemima or her potatoes.

To tell the truth, when Marag and his map didn't come through, I pretty much gave up watching the road past the henhouse. I wish I could duck out of the kitchen entirely. Let Jann Wenner make a change in his menu: "Scratch the chicken stew special, Jacky, and open some windows; the whole diner is steamed up."

The vaunted Secret Sanctorum? I was closer to opening it in Dayton, Ohio, than moping here in Giza watching my linen maid suck a persimmon – I can't even open a conversation. "Hot today," is all the talk I can come up with, though I know her name to be Kafoozalum and the juices of the fruit are dripping. Her eyes are on me like the top two buttons of her Mena House uniform, talk about open.

I know she speaks English. I've had many an opportunity to watch her prattle around the cabanas, cart full of fresh white linen and uniform full of ripe brown hide, but never had occasion to make conversation more than Hello or Thanks, even when she gave me her most treasured smile, 14-carat incisors, conversation pieces both of them… until this noon.

I'd been hurrying back to the hotel with an exciting find. Buttoned in my khaki shirt pocket was the best thing I'd found since the '66 Pontiac convertible: a fantastic old Roman coin, I think, or Greek, with a noble profile still clearly raised from its time-battered bronze.

In my enthusiasm to show Jacky Cherry that I could find something of ancient value, I had headed back as the crow flies. Instead of circling the grounds to the front gates I had managed a running vault over the rear wall of the compound. I lit, feet first, right between the spread brown knees of Kafoozalum on a little square tablecloth.

I thought she was having lunch. Staggering to keep from stepping in her beans or on her knees, I managed quite a dance before I could catch my balance and hop off. I saw then that instead of food the cloth had been spread with what looked like some kind of Egyptian tarot. She gathered the cards prudently out of my way, glaring up at me in an expression both enticing and curious.

I apologized and explained about my coin, and that I meant nothing disrespectful, jumping on her.

"I mean on your cards. Can I see them?"

"You bet!" The grin flashed and the two golden incisors winked out at me. "Sure!"

When I was comfortable on a sack of cement, she smoothed the linen back out and began spreading the cards in rows for me to see. They weren't tarot after all. They were her personal collection of those saccharoidal "posecards" that you see sold at all the knick-knack stands. Only these are for the natives, not the tourists. They display Egyptian fashion models, male and female, in stiffly tailored romantic poses. Mostly of marriage and courtship. Instead of a major arcanum like The Lovers, for instance, you have Handsome Young Couple at the Girl's Door Saying Goodnight with Soulful Looks or Fiancee Alone, Beaming Wet-Eyed at Her Mailbox by the Flowery Gate with a Letter from Him - all always in Cairo's latest hair and haberdashery, all always beautiful, loving, beaming. In short, sickening. But I was impressed by the way she presented her presentation.