Teddy Wayne - Kapitoil

I didn’t want to repeat what happened the previous weekend. But I also didn’t want Rebecca to think I was someone who never experienced fun. So I said, “I would like one beer, if you have any.”

She took a bottle out of the refrigerator and opened it rapidly with a bottle opener. When she transferred it to me, our fingers briefly contacted.

“I haven’t seen you around the office much lately,” she said.

“I have been working overtime.”

“Right, on your little Manhattan project.”

Then neither of us said anything, and I was nervous because we were alone in the kitchen and the only sounds derived from the stereo. I was glad when the doorbell rang.

The guests were a man with a black beard he continuously petted and a female who wore glasses with thick frames shaped like the eyes of a cat. Rebecca hugged them and offered them some food on the table, and the female said, “Is that ma’amoul?” Rebecca asked me to confirm it, and I said yes.

“Where’d you buy it?” the female asked. “I can’t find it anywhere.” She picked one up and put it in her mouth.

“I—” I said, then I stopped myself and waited for her to eat it, as I didn’t want her to convert her judgment because she knew its origin.

“This is so good,” she said. “John, try one. It’s a cookie stuffed with dates.”

“I baked them myself,” I said. “But I wanted to wait for you to eat it before I confessed.”

Everyone laughed, although I didn’t intend for it to be a joke. The female wiped off her hand and held it out. “I’m Eleanor, and this is my partner, John.”

“You have a business together?” I asked.

“A business?” Then she laughed again. “Oh, no, I meant we’re domestic partners.”

“I understand,” I said. “My name is Karim. Rebecca and I are international work partners.”

I waited for the others to laugh at my joke, but no one did, and in fact no one said anything and it was tense until Eleanor asked where I came from. I told her, and she said she was an artist and had studied Middle Eastern art and she wanted to go there someday. John asked me questions about Qatar because he was a journalist and knew that we just had our first elections since our independence in 1971. I was happy to discuss politics, as I hadn’t truly done that yet in New York. Rebecca is interested in the topic but she is always nervous when discussing it with me, so our conversations don’t have much breadth.

After an hour of conversing with them the room had become full, but I wasn’t anxious. A few more people joined our conversation and at one point I saw that Rebecca was watching us from across the room, but she turned her eyes away when I detected her.

Then Jessica requested that we all dance, and although I’m not a sexy dancer despite my athletic skills, it was enjoyable and we continued for a long time to songs I hadn’t heard of because they weren’t of the class that reaches Qatar. Rebecca joined us halfway through and we danced near each other several times, but every time she came close it was like we were magnets with similar poles, and she moved away. She left after a period of time and talked with a few men who had thin beards and glasses like hers and wore unconventional materials that blended in with everyone else’s, unlike my suit, and I kept watching her even though I attempted not to. I didn’t want to join her cluster because I was the only one who didn’t wear glasses, and I would stand out like a syntax error in a program, even though my eyes were not defective and theirs were.

I also didn’t understand what they were discussing, e.g., one of the men, who was not shaved and had long black hair tied with a green rubber band in the rear, said in a very deep voice, “I didn’t say I disliked the Archdukes of Hazzard; I said they were derivative of so many late-’70s New York punk bands that I’d rather just listen to the original singers. Which, incidentally, would be a good punk band name — the Original Singers.” And Rebecca said, “James, you’re such an elitist, and an obscurantist,” and he said, “Using the words ‘elitist’ and ‘obscurantist’ is a performative sentence which renders the speaker an elitist and obscurantist, as well. Read your Austin,” and she said, “You suck — perform that sentence,” but she smiled and lightly struck him on the shoulder.

Jessica left to talk with Rebecca and her friends, and she returned to our circle and asked, “Anyone for weed?”

Everyone else said yes. “You want to have some fun, Karim?” Jessica said.

I said loudly, “Yes, I would like to have some fun.”

She said “All right,” and we all followed her to Rebecca in the corner. Rebecca watched me closely. She whispered, “You know what this is, right?”

“I am not a child,” I said. “I know about marijuana.”

“Okay, sorry,” she said.

Jessica retrieved from a closet a tall red plastic cylinder that had a metal smoking pipe attached to it. She took it to the kitchen, and when she returned the cylinder was partially filled with water. One of the men removed a clear bag with marijuana in it. He inserted his fingers into the bag to pinch a small quantity, as if his hand were a machine that picked up dirt, and carefully deposited it in the pipe.

I observed him closely so that when it was my turn I would not humiliate myself. He covered a small hole in the cylinder with his index finger while he moved an activated lighter over the marijuana, then he inhaled from the cylinder and simultaneously removed his index finger. The smoke passed through the water, and I hypothesized that it made it less carcinogenic and softer for the lungs, which made me less nervous about inhaling it, as I have never even used a hookah.

Then he contained his breath for over ten seconds before he exhaled the smoke like a factory chimney. After he finished he said, “That’s a totally groovy bong, dude,” in an intentionally false and high voice, and everyone else laughed with him although I didn’t know why, and I decided I should not make any more jokes in the U.S. because I still didn’t understand the logic of humor here.

He shifted the bong clockwise to the next person. I was next, and while the female next to me inhaled, Rebecca looked at me again as if she were afraid for me.

When I received the bong, I inflamed the marijuana for a long time and inhaled strongly. The water inside made a quiet bubbling sound that was pleasing and then the marijuana smoke reached my lungs, and it burned and produced tears in my eyes, but I closed them and continued inhaling at the same pace as if I were a machine that could proceed infinitely. When I was finally done, Jessica said, “Damn, Karim knows how to par- tay! ” and I still contained my breath for even longer than the previous two people. By the time I exhaled there were just a few clouds of smoke, so I had absorbed the lion’s share of it and was using the product efficiently.

I felt slightly imbalanced, but I was not truly inebriated yet. They passed the bong around the circle, and the originator asked if we were up for another round. A few people, including Rebecca, said they had inhaled a sufficient amount, but Jessica said she wanted more and asked if I did, and I said, “If you have enough remaining I would like more,” not only because I wanted to see what the true sensation was like but also to show Rebecca that I knew how to party.

I watched the first man produce another cloud of smoke. I thought about how it was previously the marijuana plant, which came in a larger shipment that was probably sold by a drug dealer with a small income who bought it in a much larger shipment from a drug dealer with a larger income and so on, and was transported into this country by a drug dealer with an even larger income, and originally derived from marijuana plants in the ground, but that it was picked by someone with a very small income. It is always a valuable exercise to evaluate how a product arrives at its consumer, because it shows how many middlemen there are and whose labor helps determine the market price.