Spiritual Pun
To get the truth, you gotta get close. You get too close, you die.
I'm usually not somebody who spends much money while vacationing. To be honest, I do not really consider myself to be somebody who vacations. I prefer to think of what I like to do, and do often, as traveling, or adventuring. From my perspective, if there's no peril involved it's just a vacation. Living life a bit closer to the edge enhances the experience of feeling alive and allows for more opportunities to become involved in the people, places, events of a new locale than just grabbing a cab from the hotel to a nice restaurant and back. An adventure is what occurs when you do not know what is going to happen, when you just sort of aim yourself in a direction, either a geographical, emotional, mental, or social direction, and you fire like an arrow from a bow. Zingo! Landing wherever the wind may take you. For if one goes and one does precisely what one has researched and planned to do, or what one has done before, then how will a person ever learn and experience any or all of those otherwise ineffable, unseeable phenomena that comprise the universe around or inside of us? I mean who reads only the same seven books over and over, or only the books that have already been researched extensively, outlined, reviewed, planned? Who never, ever just picks up a book and gives it a go? Well, this trip to Bahrain, my first, I relinquished my control over my finances and decided that sometimes you just have to say, "What the fuck."
The Seef Mall
We took a cab to this big mall. It is not as big or as ludicrous as the Rashid Mall in Al Khobar, well, maybe almost as big, but not nearly the M.C. Escheresque cubism cum sparkly light show spectacle that the Rashid Mall is. As we were walking I heard a Nora Jones tune that I had been listening to earlier that same day in my fancy hotel room. It inspired me to go off on one of my rants about my complex understandings of the universe. In an attempt to further Jim's personal process of enlightenment, I laid out for him the synchronicity city rap. "You know," Jim, I said, "a coincidence is a spiritual pun." He laughed at this, which is good, because usually when I go on my little speeches he sort of looks at me with a three quarter glance, one eyebrow raised just barely above the other, you know, like when the nice homeless man you are talking with begins to slide into the part about the seven headed beast and the coming end of days.
"Seriously, Jim," I continued, "tell me how 'coincidental' it is that the very same song I'm listening to in my room not two hours ago. A song," I tell him, pausing for emphasis, " that I have-not listened to in, like, a year, Jim, is now on the sound system here in this big mall." I do believe that I had Jim's attention. The music was there in front of that one store, but as we moved towards the bookstore in another part of the mall we did not hear it anymore.
The Bahraini National Museum
The history museum. A good, solid choice for learning about a place. It's like choosing cheesecake for desert, a middle of the road, hard to go wrong with choice, but on the other hand you get what you settle for, right, so it's also not likely to really knock it out of the park. Learned some interesting things, possibly the most interesting of which is that like in the UAE there are artificial islands being constructed in the south of the main island, and they look like fish. Perhaps the best feature of the floor of the museum was the very large satellite image of the archipelago laid onto (or into?) the terrazzo floor of the main gallery. Large enough to be able to distinguish individual buildings and non-paved desert roads, the map was a hoot just to walk across, to look at the shorelines, the neighborhoods, the Causeway to KSA, and the fish.
Jim and I took a cab to the Museum, had a bite, coffee and a few games of backgammon at an outdoor table outside of the Museum's cafe. Jim picked up this magnetic gammon board here in Manama couple nights before and we settled right into a little bit of competitive gaming, using the betting cube, one Saudi riyal per point. Okay. Okay. Maybe I overstated. Hypothetically when using the betting cube it increases the competitiveness, the electricity, the zing zang in the air--practically speaking what Jim and I have established is a sort of Peb sponsored subsidy for Jim's vacation. That being said, it is very entertaining and I almost win an awful lot.
Trader Vic's
After three nights of Philippino cover bands, meaning three straight nights of "They stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast" in a row, we go to Trader Vic's, the swanky bar inside of the Ritz Carlton Hotel Complex on the edge of town. It's a great time, Jim assures me, smiling, but pricy. Hell, I say, I am always tight with my money on vacation, but not this time. Balls to the wall, let's do it. So we do. As the cab we are in pulls into the drive towards the small fiefdom of the Ritz Carlton, a ten foot security fence around it, I see the massive, ornate edifice itself lit up in vertical, twenty foot wide swathes of alternating purple and white floodlights. Like some mighty Camelot. It faces us as we are stopped at the small security building where five men check us, running poles with mirrors attached to the end around the cart to look for bombs underneath, searching the cab's boot, that's British English for trunk, checking IDs. The taxi driver said they didn't search us more because we are in a licensed cab. The cheap rooms here go for four hundred USD a night. We pull up to the covered valet parking stop in front of the restaurant bar complex not too far past the hotel itself, get out and are cordially greeted by the three to four well dressed valets and the two large, equally well dressed security men. We pay the cab and walk, or should I say, saunter, on in. I mean I can see what time it is, and I am most definitely getting my groove on.
Past Trader Vic's we go, the band almost two hours from playing, out onto a gorgeous tableau of a broad, sumptuous deck filled with tables of beautiful people, beautiful, finely dressed, wealthy people drinking, supping, sipping, laughing, smoking, all glittery in their Rolexes and jewelry. As we are walked to a table at the edge of the deck overlooking a wide man made pond full of two foot long orange and black carp, I am grinning, he expanse of perfection beyond. At least two aesthetically perfect wooden footbridges cross the pond to take lovely people to the nightclub on the right or to the softly lighted from below palm tree grove on the left, the salt water shimmering beyond.
We had some food, an appetizer of dim sum for me along with a cocktail, a fog cutter. We enjoyed good conversation, much of mine centering on this unbelievable scene. After an hour and a half we paid and went on into Trader Vic's. That's when the real fun began. The band was five females and a male, all Cubanos, playing exquisite, rhythmic, bouncing salsa, Buena Vista Social Club style. Short, matching black and red dresses on the ladies, one on keyboard, one on guitar, one a back up singer who also blew sax, a main vocalist, and a drummer. The man played assorted stringed instruments and on occasion sang. I grabbed a tall beer, and smoked cigarettes as we marveled at the perfect sounds and the many lubricated, cigar smoking, jet setting bar goers, a mix of Europeans, Saudis, Egyptians, Americans, Jordanians, Bahraini nationals. The gals shimmied in perfect unison to the music, all black hair and mischievous smiles.
It was while standing near a soft opening at the bar trying to get a drink, you know how we do it, surveying the line of barstools for a semi open spot to wedge oneself into or just behind to become near enough to the bar to places an order, that I met an interesting Saudi fellow. He was gregarious, maybe thirty five years old, wearing a sky blue t-shirt with inane words in English, a surfboard, and a set of two red and yellow stripes intersecting at a ninety degree angle on it. Blue jeans, black leather shoes and clutching a fat cigar. His hair was short and naturally curly, clean shaven, warm, expressive eyes and a big smile. When he spoke to me his eyes lit up as though reflecting inner riches and a sense of sureness.
"Where are you from, my friend," he queries, pulling on his stogie, looking me in the eyes.
"I'm an American. I teach over in Dhahran, and it's my first time here, in Bahrain." I've had a fog cutter and a beer by now but am looking for some drink that will roll like a freight train through my head and knock me into the next place.
He nods, taking me in. "So you like it here," and it's not really a question. He pulls his shoulders up a bit, moves his arms out, swivels his torso and head as though to say, you've made it, habibi, my friend. Nods his head, laughs as I nod mine too and we share a knowing grin.
"Indeed." The barman in his uniformed black vest comes and, unknowing exactly what will cast the spell I'm looking for, point to what seems to be the most popular drink on the bar, a red liquid in a wide, shallow bowl of crushed ice in a wide stemmed glass with a red hibiscus flower set in the center. He nods and begins to fix four of them.
My new friend laughs and says, putting out his hand and wagging it back and forth as I might if I wanted to indicate approximately, says, "It will make you walk like this," laughs again.
"Well, that's just what my doctor ordered." He laughs, understands the expression while inside I am wondering just what a doctor would in fact say. We talk for about fifteen minutes, me sucking down this lovely elixir, feeling its potency increase my own. He is in finance, works long days in Riyadh, tells me if you live in Saudia it is best to stay very busy and then take long vacations far away. He shows me pictures on his phone, in response to my asking where he goes, of an amazing villa on an island in the Philippines. A private, green mosaic tiled pool on a hill overlooking the beach and green, green jungle. He flies out there every so often for a week with a Moroccan girl, eats at luscious restaurants on the compound. Informs me that his vacations cost about one hundred thousand SR per day, that's twenty five thousand USD.
He was studying English in California when 9/11 took place, said it all changed. He said that because he looks a bit Mexican he didn't get it too bad, but the energy just switched and he made the decision to return to KSA. That being said, his English was really good.
Jim had found a table by now just in front of the ladies with their Cubano wall of sound, pushing out dramatic, deep bass pulses and brassy horn sounds, Latin rhythms, vocals from airy to deep growls, the men watching all leering and bobbing heir heads like so many sharks circling, the taste of blood and flesh in their mouths.
A bushy haired, black leather jacket man in his late twenties wearing a genuinely open smile asked if he and his friends could use our extra chair as they sat down immediately to our right. Of course. He and I ended up talking some. He is an Egyptian with perfect English, a Bahraini National now, his parents having moved their some years back. He teaches special needs kids, those with autism mostly. A gentle man, there with his friend, Eunace, a Jordanian guy with skin much lighter than my own. He shared a couple of cigarettes with me and we all let the drinks work their magic as we moved ourselves in time with the waves of music that accompanied the swaying hips of the well formed women in front of us.
The bookstores In Bahrain have books that are banned in KSA. I have a belief that anyone can essentially earn a degree in any field by simply getting a good book list and starting to pour through books on one subject of interest. A friend once pointed out that he had heard it said that if a person reads an hour a day on a subject for one year that they will accumulate roughly the same amount of information as somebody who has an AA or a minor in that subject. So I am devouring books on Saudi Arabia and the Middle East in general, the history, the politics, the people, organizations, language, food, etc. As I work to accumulate more, either paper or electronic copies, I have been thwarted time and again by the Saudi government blocking websites, Amazon's "Sorry but that title is not available in your region," the lack of any books but those on architecture, cooking, and travel, and, of course, an entire long shelf top to bottom of the Qur'an and books about the Qu'ran. Even the vanilla title and topic of Daniel Yergin's Pulitzer Prize winning The Prize, about the history of oil, is only available outside the borders; I bought this 800 page behemoth in Bahrain and am now cruising through it. It is actually far more interesting than it probably sounds
Poolside
Every morning Jim and I would meet at the dining room on the ground floor (which in this part of the world is the zero floor, the first is what we call the second floor in he US) for a sumptuous breakfast buffet. A very long table, perhaps twenty feet in length, held various culinary delights along both sides of its length. Scrambled eggs, bacon that is sliced in pieces like roast beef, potatoes, pastries, croissants, breads of all kinds, chicken nuggets, porridge, all manner of fruits both whole and sliced, nuts, cereals, jams, yogurt, mini quiches, fresh squeezed juices, and a number of Indian dishes that varied from morning to morning, but consisting of spiced lentil and bean dishes with small crepe like flat breads. The waiters would bring coffee or tea to our table and we would dine and talk in a naturally lit long room amongst the hotel's other guests for ninety minutes or so.
After eating we would both retire back to our rooms for a spell, me often going back to bed, reading and snoozing a bit more, and then we would meet at the large, AstroTurf covered deck between the pool and the outside bar. If we weren't reading, writing, or talking, we might be gambling at backgammon. Soon a beer would appear in my hand and we would decide what our day would hold. Close to retirement, Jim's focus would often be on how to market the three ESL websites that he has made over the years, a useful addition to his coming post employment life.
Jim is an Italian American from Rochester, New York. He is not tall, has short, tight dark, hair and a mustache and goatee. He has that quick thinking, somewhat fiery personality of the American Northeast. Having worked overseas for twenty five or so years, he speaks Japanese, Chinese, French, and has been dabbling in Italian over the past couple of years. At KFUPM the two of us will go and shoot baskets at times together and he is also wont to take his tennis racket and hit it against a wall for exercise, coming back from his tennis to say something like, "The wall only made one mistake today." Jim is not now married and neither has he ever been nor, he firmly states, eyes widening a tad, will he ever be. He is a more cautious person than I, although I suppose that that simply puts him in the class of people that includes, well, pretty much everyone. Goes to bed earlier than I, plans for his retirement more than I.
Diggers
So, do I want to go to Diggers? The Diggers that I have heard so very much about, the Diggers swimming in booze and Chinese hookers. Jim pops the question. Okay, sure. Now I am not that kind of guy, okay? I am not the kind of guy who frequents professionals. On the other hand, uh, on the other hand, how can I not want to see this oft spoken of paragon of Bahraini nightlife? I have been to places and have done things to experience as much of this world as I can that if I were to attempt to capture in words, not very many people would want to read about. That being said, I am a straight up sucker for the bizarre, the far, far end of the human bell curve of messed up things. So, sure. Yes. Let's do it.
Leaving the cab and walking for the door I am afraid, I am very afraid. I mean I've dated and lived with women who have hooked, I've worked with male hookers when I lived in Boston, grown up with gals in elementary and junior high school that have gone into the business end of the world's oldest profession, but opening that door, entering that dimly lit, claustrophobic bar, watching the many twenty to forty something year old ladies move towards us gave me a bit of a clammy feeling, something akin to being flocked by vampires, all hands, bodies pressing into me, syrupy smiles, eyebrows raising and falling in rapid succession. We grabbed stools at the closest tall table, both sitting on the same side facing the, you guessed it, Phillipino cover band on the stage at the end of the narrow, low ceilinged room. By this time, maybe two minutes in, three women are touching me, rubbing me, and I am grinning, laughing stupidly, shaking my head, wow.
I look each in the face and they are working hard to make friendly, beginning to pull at my shoulder muscles, to massage me, squeeze my thighs in time with the music. I look at Jim, he looks back, like, I told you. We order a couple of drinks, and then fall the rest of the way down the rabbit hole. Before fifteen minutes has passed I have parted with about seventy USD for buying drinks for the girls that they never order. One gal is working assiduously at giving me a back massage, one is pressed into my right side, her hips moving in time to the music into my thigh. I have made it clear, at least I have tried to make it clear, that I am not interested in sex, but since I have given them some money, I guess maybe I am sending mixed messages? The gal on my right moves her mouth to my ear, whispers, "I wan you spend night in my room. Only MA-ssage, no boom boom." I laugh, guffaw really. Nervous I suppose. Say, "No. No. Thank you." Tell her she is beautiful but I am not interested. I decide that telling her I am heartbroken and just "not ready" is a decent compromise between being hard and shoving them away and going to her room with her to not make boom boom.
Jim speaks Chinese, having lived and taught in Beijing for eight years. The gals love this and seem to find it somehow precious, taking turns flirting with him. At one point I look over to see how my wing man is doing, and see a twenty year old named Mali sitting on his lap receiving a massage from him. He looks over her shoulder at me, sort of shrugs his shoulders with a perfect 'when in Bahrain...' kind of look. I end up swilling down four pints of Guinness in the two to three hours we spend there. I guess all in all I drop about one hundred and fifty USD in the place.
We climb back into a cab and begin to head back to the Ramada. Jim says to me, "So you wanna check out Boomers. It's like Diggers on steroids." Me, a bit drunk, unsure of what all has just happened. "Jim, I think Diggers is like Diggers on steroids."
There it is again. In the bookstore in the Seef Mall. The spiritual pun. It occurs again while we stand near one another perusing the shelves. I'm like, "Dude, seriously, check it." He's like, "The what a ya call it, the pun thing..." "What ARE the odds, Jim, seriously?" and I hear it just behind me and turn to see where the speaker is because I want to know was it on the Mall's sound system or is it so freakishly un coincidentally coincidental as to be simultaneously on in two DIFFERENT stores that we just HAPPENED to walk into. When I turn around I notice that the sound is now coming from behind me again. It is then that, sheepishly enough, it dawns on me. The reason this song that I was listening to on my iPad in my room is following me around mysteriously from place to place is because my iPad is in my backpack where its buttons are being randomly pushed by the other items in my pack. Yes, that's right, the spiritual pun is me here traipsing around with my Nora Jones album intermittently turning itself on and off and sounding like a speaker in the mall always just a bit behind me.
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