Reading about and watching the footage of President Bush's encounter with an Iraqi journalist's shoes brought up a memory for me about another dispute involving middle-eastern men and shoes. It was a place very different, both mentally and physically, from where I'm at today. And that recollection brought a wistful smile to my heart.
It was in the fall of 2004, just prior to the re-election of our Commander Codpiece in Chief. For several months I had been living with a family in the neighborhood called Shobra in Cairo, Egypt. How and why I got there is something I won't go into here and now, but suffice it to say that I was batshit crazy at the time. Everyone who knew and loved me knew I was batshit crazy and did everything short of having me committed to stop me from going. And yet it was this excursion into the unknown and "dangerous" that saved me from myself. But I digress.
During my time in Egypt, I spent my days in the company of the lady of the house, Merwat (pronounced Meervaht), cooking, doing household chores, relaxing in the heat of the day and going about the normal activities and interactions of everyday life. She was disabled by lupus, and my being there to assist her and bring companionship and interest to her life was just what the doctor ordered for both of us. We formed a beautiful friendship. During our first few days together we bonded over learning to communicate with each other, since I didn't speak Arabic and she didn't speak English. We each taught the other words for the common things in daily life, common expressions and phrases, and we quickly picked up a private sign and facial language that didn't require words.
The rest of the family spoke English to varying degrees. Merwat's husband, Hamdy, and I could communicate fairly well, and her daughter and daughter-in-law, Hanna and Lamya, both had some communication skills. My lifeline when I needed someone I could blather to in English for reliable translation was the oldest son, Mohammad (nicknamed Hamada), husband of Lamya and father to a son less than a year old who thought I was the best thing since sliced bread. Each of these people were loving, gentle souls from whom I learned much.
During the day Merwat and I were sometimes joined by her dear friend and neighbor, Hooda. Hooda had been married to an American long ago and had a grown son. Her English was pretty good, she was fun and friendly, and the three of us spent many a hot afternoon drinking a steaming beverage (hot tea with milk of an oxe for me, Nescafe with milk and sugar for them) chatting and laughing as we watched Egyptian soap operas or clucking with sorrow over the gruesome news from Gaza and Iraq. Hooda had had a hard life, but she was made of stern stuff and she didn't take any guff from anyone. The men in Merwat's life were always eying Hooda for signs of trouble, but Merwat loved her friend and stared them down whenever necessary.
It was life in suburbia, Egyptian style.
The incident in question happened during Ramadan. We had been invited down to Hooda's flat to share the evening's feast after a day of fasting, as is customary during Ramadan, and everyone was feeling festive. Fanooses, the lamps that are hung from every house during the holiday, were everywhere and even though it wasn't quite dusk yet they were all ablaze in anticipation of the call to evening prayers and the breaking of the fast. Merwat, Hamdy and I were sitting in Hooda's living room discussing the news of the day with Hooda's brother and son while Hooda and her daughter-in-law readied the feast when a commotion broke out in the street below. We all got up and made our way to the balcony to see what was going on. The second story balcony wrapped around two entire sides of the flat, affording a bird's-eye view of the street corner below, and that was where the action was.
The scene was unfolding rapidly. There was a small but scrappy middle-aged man wearing a galabeya screaming and gesticulating wildly at a larger, heavier bus driver who in turn was screaming and wildly gesticulating right back. From what I could translate of the screaming, the man had stepped off the corner and into the path of the bus, causing the bus to screech to a halt and rendering a near-death experience to all involved.
The incident in and of itself was no big deal, the kind of routine occurrence that could be found on any given street corner in Cairo at any given time of the day or night. The streets were crowded not just with cars but with people walking wherever they wanted, as well as donkeys, horses and oxen pulling carts. There were rarely traffic lights and where they did exist they appeared to have no effect whatsoever. Drivers drove at whatever speed caught their fancy and drove wherever they felt like driving except where police with guns were present. It was particularly exciting at night when the streets were bursting with people not even acknowledging the existence of the cars hurtling in every possible direction, none of them with their headlights on ("there are streetlights and the moon. Why headlights?") So the fact that the incident took place was not the cause of the disruption. No one was hurt, after all.
No, the problem was just who was at fault and just who was going to back down first. A crowd of men had formed, most of whom hadn't seen a thing but were willing to choose sides and join the festivities. From my vantage point I spotted the top of a familiar gray head that had recently been peeking over my right shoulder. I touched Merwat's shoulder and pointed. "Hamdy," I said. She shook her head and chuckled. He was on the periphery, but the crowd was growing.
The bus driver and aggrieved pedestrian were shouting at each other, of course. The passengers on the bus were shouting, too, as well as many in the crowd. You could literally see a line of demarcation, a split in the two sides. The shouting was soon joined by drivers honking and shouting because they couldn't get around the crowd. I couldn't make out most of what was being shouted, my Arabic was just too rudimentary at that point to keep up, but the rising agitation of the forming mob had both the bus driver and pedestrian in a red-faced duel to be heard above the crowd. I was watching in fascination, wondering where this could possibly lead, when I distinctly heard one word issue from the pedestrian's mouth, a word that I had been taught with a care and attention to detail as to its pronunciation that it was patently clear I should understand it should I hear it, and then told never to say it, ever. A word that is the insult of insults, the equivalent of calling someone's mother a filthy whore. The word so foul that one dare not speak its name.
"Sharmota!" he screamed.
It was as if the earth stood still. A collective gasp issued from crowd below, and from balconies all along the block I heard muffled squeals of horror. I gasped as well at this shocking turn of events and glanced at Merwat, who had covered her mouth with her hands and had her eyes squeezed tightly shut. The cars stopped honking, the birds stopped chirping, for one brief moment sound as I knew it ceased to exist.
And then all hell broke loose. The bus driver bent down and snatched the shoe from his foot, shouted something that sounded a lot like the infamous "Dean Scream" and drew back for the throw. The passengers on the bus and the crowd that was on his side all began grabbing at his arm and the shoe to keep him from throwing it, all the while screaming over their shoulders and shaking their fists at the pedestrian. The pedestrian saw the shoe poised for flight, looked down at his own shoeless feet as if in search of a similar insulting weapon and, finding nothing there to assist him, rose and launched himself, mosh-pit style, at the bus driver. His supporters grabbed hold of him and tried to pull him back while simultaneously shouting and shaking their fists. There was a whole lotta shoutin' and fist shakin' goin' on. It was one of the most melodramatic scenes I've witnessed in my life, and I've seen some melodramatic shit. The noise was deafening, the crowd was sweaty and red-faced, sooner or later something was gonna have to give.....
.....and then the call to prayer began.
And just as quickly as it had all started, the crowd melted away, the pedestrian disappeared into the lengthening shadows, the bus driver pulled away and continued with haste toward his destination.
Despite the fact that the two instigators had obviously been pissed, it was all a big show. You couldn't find more fake drama in a Las Vegas dinner show rendering of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Neither of them had any intention of laying a hand on the other or they'd have done it long before the call to prayer. The crowd, of course, knew this and their own fake outrage was just a major blowing off steam, a testosterone dump, if you will.
I glanced back over at Merwat, still hiding behind her hands, and Hooda, who was shaking her head and rolling her eyes. Hooda turned to go back to the kitchen but Merwat, her eyes twinkling wildly, half whispered something through her fingers which I couldn't understand and gave a sideways nod to the street. Hooda looked from Merwat to me then nodded toward the street and said, "Men."
"Meeen," Merwat repeated, then burst into girlish giggles. The three of us stood there and giggled until the tears streamed down our faces. As we were finally winding down the men returned from their ringside perches to rejoin us. As Hooda trotted back to the kitchen and I helped Merwat return to her chair she hooked her arm through mine, leaned in close, gave a quick jerk of her head in the direction of the menfolk and whispered, "Men.....donkey." Then she giggled again.
Like I said, life in suburbia, Egyptian style.