One evening in Tucson

A story based on actual events

A Jew, a Palestinian and a guy in tie-dye were alone in my living room when I got home, none of whom live here. They were sitting around the coffee table in the dark, with barely audible music playing.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" I asked with kind of a what the fuck are you doing in the living room tone. I'm really just a houseguest here, sleeping on the couch, but I still feel somewhat territorial.

"Not much man, not much. What'd you do today?" asked Mort, a New Yorker who'd been substitute teaching in town between benders. I couldn't really give him much of an answer because I was really confused by their presence in the house on a Monday evening. Mort was sitting with Yosef, an angry Palestinian who works with my roommate.

Yosef's visits come way too frequently and often end with a tirade of words that are mostly unintelligible. "The only people I fucking trust are people from Qatar, Kuwait and the Arab Emirates. None of the other people." or "They kill my fucking grandfather right in front of me." or "I not angry with him, just fucking disappointed, you know?" or "This country move too fast. Too much knowledge, information. Everybody fucking miserable."

The third undesirable in the living room was my neighbor Eli, who is often banned from the house. He was wearing a tie-dye shirt, filthy cargo pants. His complexion is that of a middle-aged man who has spent his entire life drinking and taking drugs in intense heat and sunlight.

Yosef was apologizing frantically to Eli like he was the Godfather.
"You don't have to be sorry man. What are you sorry for?"
"I sorry to make up for the DVD player," Yosef was saying.
"Okay, that's cool man."

This was too much to handle. All I wanted to do was read this book I was almost done with. I went into the bathroom to hide and shave. When I came out, Eli was gone and the others were still lying on the couch, passing around a Playboy. I walked past them and took my book to the porch. Outside it was the kind of hot that is best described as offensive, but I didn't want to talk to the Jew and the Palestinian in my living room. Not because of the international tension, but because they're annoying. I was reading on the porch for about five minutes when Eli walked up again, this time with his roommate Tom, a drug-addled yardworker who wears the same clothes everyday and doesn't appear to have showered in years.

"Hey man, what you reading?" Eli asked.
"Oh, just some short stories," I said, certain he wouldn't know the author.
"Yeah man, who?"
He took the book from my hands. It turned out that not only had he read the author's novels, but we have very similar tastes in fiction. I felt like a jerk for assuming that because he was missing teeth he wouldn't be well read. He handed the book back, with my place lost. Shit.
"Is Yosef in there still? I gotta talk to him. I don't think he's telling me the truth," Eli said and went inside.
Tom, who had been eating a sandwich and twitching until now, asked, "You ever read any Louis Lamour?"
"No, not really. You?"
"Only a couple. Most of them don't come in Braille."
"You have to read in Braille?" He didn't seem blind.
"No, but I do sometimes. It's faster," he said.
"So you know Braille?"
"No, just four letters."
Pause. I had no idea what to say.
"That's not true. That was a bad joke," he said, and laughed as if it were a good joke.

Eli came out again. Tom got up and left. Eli sat and rejoined our conversation. Offering to lend me several books that I'd like to read. He said he wanted to stick around and see if someone showed up. Someone did show up.

Two men in a glass delivery van pulled up, bass pounding. The driver was the fattest Mexican I'd ever seen, spilling out of the window. The passenger was about 6'6", wearing warmup pants a tank top and a ball cap. He looked like a bodybuilder and had a braided ponytail down half of his back. He walked in without saying anything.
"Who's that?" I asked Eli.
"Lots of powder. A lot of bad energy. I don't like that guy."
"Huh."

Eli went nextdoor to get a book he thought I'd like to read. I told him I'd lend him my book as soon as I finished it. He was excited. Across the street a little Mexican kid in a red Mariachi outfit stood out front of the elementary school. His parents came and picked him up. The braid guy came out again.
"Did you come for Yosef?" Eli asked.
"He just owed me some money," the guy said, and drove off in his van.

I poked my head into the house and the others were nowhere to be seen. The door to the back bedroom was closed and music was playing. I didn't want to know what the hell was going on. I could have pushed Eli to tell me, but I just didn't want to. I wanted to finish my book. The sun was starting to set, and it was slightly less hot. Still hot though. There was a full moon in the middle of the purple-pink sky.

"Interesting, very interesting," Eli said. "You know I saw this comic in a magazine the other day," he said. "The caption was 'Alice in Wonderbra,' and Alice had these huge boobs. She was talking to a friend and saying, "You know, ever since I got this thing men just get curiouser and curiouser," and then he left.

Mort and Yosef surfaced. Mort left to buy curtains. Yosef told me a poem about my roommate, and retold the story about when he saw his grandfather killed in front of him. He fell asleep in the living room.

My roommate came home from work shortly after.
"What'd you do today?" he asked.
"Just trying to finish this book."

###

Yosef's poem

Dan is a man who is destined
to be hunted like an animal
Because he has no money
and cannot accept this
So he will run
His honor has been restored