"The world is unstable, like a house on fire. This is not a place where you stay long.
The murderous haunt of impermanence comes upon you in a flash, no matter whether
you are rich or poor, young or old.
Thomas Cleary, The Five Houses of Zen
-I used to ask myself silently and furtively, what I feared the most? The answer, an unwanted and reluctant answer, slowly emerged and that was I feared that my life, like so many lives I was witnessing around me at close range, had no real meaning and relevance.
After being able to feed and clothe myself, I was struggling to make sense of my life. I was a father, a husband several times, and a good friend to several guys and numerous women, but somehow I was feeling dissatisfied and restless with my life. Something was missing. I knew I didn't care for money, fame, power, or even food and sex that much. I didn't believe in God or the afterlife. So what was the fuck I was living on this planet for, I wondered, while feelings of suicide and homicide were knotted together and dominated my waking hours and sometimes in my dreams at night. One day, about twenty years ago, I decided to write my way out of these oppressive feelings of being in the grips of dissatisfaction and woundedness and violence. So I decided to construct a narrative of daily musings into a fictionality which may or may not end up as art. I just knew I needed to weave words together. I write, therefore I exist. I didn't want to die, to vanish. Not yet.
That was how Roberto told me over drinks in a sports bar called Buffalo Wings on Warm Springs Street off Durango Drive in the southwest section of Phoenix, AZ., on a Monday night after the Super Bowl. We were eating chicken wings with extra hot sauce and downed them with pitchers of beer one after another until our words were slurred, our eyes red and bleary, and our brains had difficulty finding words to say what we wanted to say. There were not many customers on the premises that night. And we hardly looked at the TV screens. We chose a table at the end corner where the two walls meet, far away from the entrance , and where we could watch who would come in. I realized we were quite stupid in drinking quite a bit. I wondered if we could react fast and shoot straight if something happened. But that night was our last night together. I would board a flight to Colombia the following morning and didn't know when I would see Roberto again.
I just got back to the States after an overseas assignment that had almost cost me my life. I had told Roberto before taking on the assignment that I had serious misgivings about it, and Roberto told me not to take it. But as I explained to Roberto, there are some people in this world to whom you just can say No and then live a carefree life without looking over your shoulders.
My job was to take out the head of a French-speaking state in the "Dark Continent" who posed a threat to the mining interests by his talks about nationalization and end of neo-colonialism. The plan was simple: I would fly in; stay in a hotel room already booked in advance for me; a package containing a high-powered, state-of -the-art sniper rifle, a handgun Glock, and their ammunition already in the room the morning of my arrival; and from then on, I would be on my own. My mark would deliver an open air speech in a week, commemorating his third year in office, during which he was expected to announce his plans of nationalization of all the mines in the country. A sum of $150 K in advance was wired to my secret banking account in Grand Cayman Island; an additional $100 K upon completion of the assignment.
I went through my due diligence reconnaissance routine and found a vantage point where I could carry out the task. To make a long story super short, I did the job. Just as I lowered the rifle down and wiped all the fingerprints, I sneezed very hard and must have jerked my head quite a bit because something whizzed by my right temple and nicked my right ear. Instinctively, I dived to the floor and rolled out of view as a succession of shots coming from somewhere far away failed to hit me. I threw down the rifle which was of no use to me now, and reached for the Glock in my holster while running down the stairs. My heart was in my throat which was dry and badly in need of water. My whole body was shaking with fear and loathing. I was betrayed. I should have listened to Roberto. When I got down to the street level, the whole place was abuzz with people and cops and cars, with sirens from ambulances and cop cars getting louder with each passing second.
I hailed a taxi, and told the driver to take me to a nearest bus station, figuring that it would be the last place the authorities and any individual(s) would be on the lookout for me. The driver had the radio on. A male voice came on and excitedly informed the nation that the President had been shot by some unknown assassin, and was "wounded but in stabilized condition" . I was astounded by the lie, and I realized that I was in mortal danger. I must get out of the country fast, by hook or by crook, I was telling myself. It took me three days to get to Mali, and then Morocco where I boarded a a flight to Montreal, Canada under a different name, with a different passport. Then from Montreal I took a Greyhound bus to Portland, Maine. I then stole a car and drove to Chicago. I ditched the car there and stole another nondescript car and drove to Albuquerque where I had friends. By the time I left Albuquerque, I had another identity with another passport, new appearance, and another car that I didn't have to steal. I knocked on Roberto's condo door around two in the morning, on a Saturday. I crashed and slept for almost 14 hours straight, after briefly telling him what had happened and added that I was in serious trouble and he could be, too, and that we must be both prepared to die. Upon hearing that, he just looked straight at me and said, "no problema, Omar. Go to bed. Sleep tight. If we die, we die. Nobody dies twice."
After waking up, I soaked myself in the bathtub, meditating and thinking hard about what to do with the situation on hand. The news on TV got stranger and surreal. It said that I was cornered and shot dead. I got on the Net. All that I could gather was that the President was out of danger and "recovering" (how could that be when half of his brain was blown away?) The country was back to normal. There was no marital law, no declaration of emergency, no mention about nationalization. I, of course, went to the site where I usually received encrypted and coded messages from my "contact". There was none. Neither was there an additional $100 K as promised when I got to my bank's website. Things really got out of kilter, rotten, and out of joint, and I must run. When Monday came around, I called my trusted lawyer who happened to be my first cousin who thought I was employed by the DEA, and told him that I had to lie low and out of sight for a while. Meanwhile, I needed him to liquidate all my hard assets as soon as possible, and wire me the money at the account in Grand Cayman Island less 10% for his work. I said, "Keep this account number in a very safe place. Commit to the memory, if you can. If anybody comes looking for me, just absolutely say you have no idea where I am, which is the truth anyway."
Roberto was now deep in thought. He didn't look at me, but at the door. I asked,
-What's wrong? Something's bothering you? You didn't make new enemies since I last saw you, did you?
-Not quite enemies, but pretty close.
-Can you tell me? Can I help?
-Nah, you're in deep shit already. It's not a big deal. I just learned something more about human nature. Envy is a sorry state of mind. It makes a person small and pitiful. I know this guy called KaKiKaKa on the Net in a discussion group. The son of a bitch is stupid, ignorant, and petty-minded. A complete asshole but tries to hide his sordid nature behind polite, but biting words. I can't understand why there's such a scumbag like that. The motherfucker is persistent, trying to get under my skin, provoking me, needling me. I asked him where he lived so somebody would have a friendly conversation with him, telling him to bug off, but the coward, of course, didn't tell me where he lived.
-You know what city he is in, right?
-Not really.
-So, just forget the motherfucker. Ignore him. Everybody probably knows already he's a complete jerk-off anyway. Is this the motherfucker you told me that his wife walked out on him because his dick is a tiny weenie and he failed to satisfy her?
-Yeah, he's the one.
-(Laughing), Roberto, don't waste your time with a guy with a little dick. If you want to have some fun arguing, look for a dude who has a normal size dick, is not impotent, and not cheated by his wife.
-Anybody else?
-Yes, there is.
-Really? Roberto, for fuck's sake, why do you keep fucking making enemies? Tell me about this one. He doesn't have a small dick, like the other one, does he?
-I don't know. He didn't tell me like the other one did. But this dude is far more interesting.
-How interesting?
-He was a Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons in Canada. He retired a few years ago. Anyway, he was awfully proud, as he should, of his achievements, being an immigrant and all. I didn't know him directly. I knew about him as he was a member of the association of former Colombo Plan students in NZ and Australia. One day, in showing off, he wrote some broken and ungrammatical Spanish greetings. You see, I went through Hell learning Spanish and I'm still going through Hell, so when somebody doesn't know Spanish and yet tries to show off, I take it upon myself to put him/her in his/her place. So I corrected him, albeit very gently. Instead of being grateful, the son of a bitch was peevish and barely under control. Then Trent, a member of the group, quite a gentleman and a very capable writer in English in his own rights, interjected, saying that I am a "linguist" and a stickler about grammar and spelling, and in order to appreciate what an "extraordinary" writer that I am, the former Deputy Speaker needed to go into my blog and see for himself. Well, apparently this former Deputy Speaker dude didn't like the word "extraordinary" so he deconstructed it to make fun of me. I retorted that I never regarded myself as "extraordinary", and that I always considered myself "non-ordinary", as in the sense Carlos Castañeda used in his book A Separate Reality, without any connotation of superiority none whatsoever. Things got a bit over-heated in the exchange (his English was just OK, but definitely inferior to Trent's and mine), and he disappeared after receiving the last missive, rather, the last missile missive from me as follows:
"Only a fool would think that he can easily effect (yes, "effect" is used as a verb here, and not a typo) changes in thoughts and hence behaviors of whoever he runs into in life.
By the same token, however, only a smug and old fool, like Señor C, would pen that "Nothing from outside or others can affect and change my self-confidence and living attitudes." . C failed to understand the process of human intellectual and spiritual growth and the behaviors of humans who, in essence, are social animals. We all affect and are affected, in varying degrees, by people with whom we associate, wittingly or not. To deny that truism, as C just did, means he has been living in a cave or under a rock, in total isolation from other humans, or he was lying or didn't know what the heck he was talking about or he is possibly in the grips of Alzheimer's.
To condense what I wrote in the previous email and label it under the rubric "survival of the fittest", as C did, was an act of mindless and wanton simplification. Further, for him to say that I advanced that Darwinian thesis under the cloak of big words, was an exercise of throwing in a smoke grenade during a conversation. The words I have used are not foreign even to high-school kids, and frankly are not "big". Words have their own use and place. To use them precisely and correctly and appropriately (in a right context) is what it counts, not how big or small they are. By the way, I did not consciously ape Darwin when penning my thoughts. I just put down what I thought was common sense and plain honesty, not smug sophistry (aka bald-faced and clever lying), based on empirical observations, in connection with what we are discussing concerning "ordinary".
-Congratulations, you just put down, belittled a former high-ranking, self-important elected official who was impressed with himself. Why did you do a thing like that? Why didn't you endear yourself to him? He could be of use to you. You never know.
-Omar, I'm stupid like that. You know me. I'm not practical or wise. I march to my own drums. Frankly, I didn't give a shit about assholes like him. He didn't impress me at all. He gave me his phone number, thinking that I would be curious about him and wanted to get to know him better. I threw the phone number away.
Very few humans impress me. My values are different than those of most humans on this planet. I'm into truths, meanings of life, true love and altruism, and patriotism, and not curious at all about some self-impressed former politicians. I found the former Deputy Speaker shallow and quite stupid. I told you about Cherry, didn't I? I didn't? Well, then listen to what I have to say. The woman impressed me. She was real. She was not pretty or anything like that. She had money but she didn't talk about her wealth. She was kind to everybody because that was her nature. She was educated but didn't make a big issue that she was an intellectual like I tend to do when under attack. She was religious but didn't lecture to people about her religion. She went to church because she wanted to experience peace while being there. The woman was real and her life has brought meaning, not only to herself, but everybody who knew her.
-Roberto, why can't you be like her?
-Because I'm a flawed, unhinged, incomplete human being.
-Well said, Dr. Freud. Have you given any thought about joining me in Colombia? You don't have to work. I have enough money to last both of us until we hit 100. Besides, Carthagena is a beautiful seaside city, close to everything, and not far from the States. You will absolutely love it. Besides, you'll pick up Spanish like crazy and pretty soon you'll speak it like a native, and not haltingly like you do now.
-You forgot I'm still married and have a son. Living with you would be dangerous to my well-being. In fact, as you pointed out to me a few days ago, my life is already in danger. Maybe, I just disappear, vanish into thin air, like you, but definitely not living with you. For all my talks about suicide and shit, I still love life. I still want to improve my mind, and want to stick around to see when China is going to disintegrate into smaller nations, and what will happen to the U.S., India, and Saudi Arabia.
-Suit yourself. I'll be in touch. And remember, from now on, we only contact each other through coded messages on the Net. No phone. I'll get to the airport by myself tomorrow. You'd better get your affairs into order super fast, like by the end of the week, even sooner. He who hesitates will get killed. Remember that.
Cinco de Mayo, 2016
Wissai
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