later, the waiter came with the Beer Bible. It had over five hundred international beers listed in it.
I don’t recall how many different beers I drank that evening, but I still remember some of the names: Sierra Nevada, Schneider Weisse, Kipling Pale, Prima Pils, Christmas Ale, Hefeweizen and Mad Elf. I enjoyed them all and, after knocking back a few bottles, my heart was aflame when I looked at Siri. The blue of her eyes reminded me of the colour of the ocean at Zanzibar’s Mercury Beach where I had once performed.
“So, I think I must come with you to the motherland,” Siri said to me. “You made it sound amazing.”
The sound of those words coming from her lips was so sweet that I had difficulty controlling my emotions.
“I know why you don’t want to come with me to Mali,” said Bakala, acting as if he was jealous. “It’s because of that girl who asked all those stupid questions during my talk about tabale.”
“You mean the one who asked you whether you have roads in Mali?”
“Exactly that one,” he said, taking a swig of beer. “I think she discouraged you.”
There was laughter. At the same time, a crowd of young people swarmed in and sat in one of the empty booths not far from us. When I looked at the time, I realised it was already half past seven. Thirty minutes into Happy Hour.
“But I liked your answer,” Siri said. “And people believed you when you said that there aren’t any roads and that the US ambassador to Mali travels around the country by swinging from tree to tree. They were not at all surprised.”
A rupture of laughter followed. It was the loud laughter of the drunks. Siri drained her glass and the waiter came with another, different beer and a new glass that matched the beer.
“Man, I get these stereotypes about Africa a lot. Remember the guy I was sitting next to at the back of the bus on our way to Coralville Mall the other day?” Bakala paused and looked around the table. “The whole trip he was telling me about his friend from Gabon, called Pete. Even after I had told him several times that I was from Mali, and it was a different country, he still asked if I knew his friend.” He took a swig from his glass before putting it down. “So, in the end, to shut him up, I told him that I did know Pete. And you know what he did? He gave me his number to give to Pete, so that Pete could call him.”
“The other day, as I came out of Penn Station in New York, I tossed a dollar into one of the homeless people’s hats,” Kuri said. “I think he heard me speaking with my brother in Shona. He asked me where I was from, and when I told him I was from Zim, he returned my dollar, saying that Africa probably needed the money more than he did. I was shocked.”
There was laughter. I knew everyone was now exaggerating their experiences, but we were having a great time. Siri was giggling as if she had inhaled laughing gas. I still didn’t know what her plans were for that night. I thought that she would probably drive back to Philadelphia. In any case, I was sharing my hotel room with Bakala. He was way older than me and in my culture it is unthinkable to ask an older guy to give up his room so that a younger person can have some privacy with a girl. Kuri was also sharing – with Dede from Brazzaville – which meant that my only option was to pay for another room in the Hilton Hotel. Unfortunately, I had exhausted most of my stipend on beer and the money I was left with wasn’t going to be enough.
An opportunity to discuss all of this came when Siri went to the bathroom. In conspiratorial tones, Kuri and Bakala asked me what I wanted to do about sleeping arrangements. With the help of the alcohol in my brain, I explained to them that I couldn’t ask Bakala to vacate our room.
Bakala laughed. “Well, it is unthinkable in my culture that a man would not give up his bed if his brother had something like that to chew on.”
Bakala then told Kuri that he was coming to sleep in his room if Siri decided to come back to the hotel with me. He also told me not to worry about Dede – he would explain everything.
A few minutes later Siri came out of the bathroom and the four of us wobbled drunkenly out of the ChurchKey. A light rain had started.
Driving back, we passed Thomas Circle Park. Our hotel was just a few metres away and, after paying for the underground parking, Kuri and Bakala left Siri and me in the parking lot. We smoked a joint and, feeling a bit high, went straight to my room on the eleventh floor.
Inside the room Siri ignored the two chairs and sat on the floor at the foot of my bed. I grabbed a couple of beers from the minibar and sat down next to her. It was just like our Iowa days. The only difference was that she didn’t resist when I kissed her.
I don’t know whether it was because of the dope and the alcohol, but when Siri decided to take a shower, she stood up and took her clothes off right there, in front of me. Walking lazily to the bathroom, she invited me to follow with a wave of her hand. I obliged, taking off my clothes as my hunger for her lithe body began to overwhelm me.
“Do you have a condom?” she asked, dishing me a smile from inside the shower.
For a moment, as I watched her under the water, I was speechless. “No, I don’t,” I finally whispered.
“No glove, no love,” she said, pointing her finger at me and smiling. “I suggest you go down to the lobby and ask them.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Most hotels sell them,” she said, her eyes large and coquettish. “And don’t be late.”
“I’ll never be late for your love, baby.”
I hurriedly put on my boxers and hotel gown. No shoes – I was just going to the lobby and back. No big deal.
In the lobby, the doorman smiled at me and then told me that they had run out of condoms.
Fuck!
“Where is the nearest place I can get them?” I asked, obviously disappointed. “Do you have a garage nearby that is still open?”
“What’s a garage?”
“Just tell me where I can buy condoms,” I said.
“Okay, try the CVS,” he replied, a wobbly smile on his face.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“It’s four blocks from here. As you walk out of the door, turn right. You’ll see a shop across the street with CVS Pharmacy written on the windows.”
“Do you think they’re still open?”
“It’s twenty-four hours.”
Luckily the rain had slowed to a drizzle, but the pavement was still wet and the wind was icy on my back. I was not deterred, however. I was still buzzing with the warmth of the dozen beers I had drunk and the joint I had smoked in the parking lot with Siri. As I walked along the road, the image of Siri naked in the shower kept flashing into my brain and very soon my boxer shorts became far too small for my erection that projected ahead of me like a stolen rhino horn.
I crossed the street and passed Thomas Circle Park. There was a huge statue of a man sitting with a rifle in his hands in the park. Next to the rifle man’s statue was another of a standing woman. I had passed through the park during the day and had read the name on the statue: John Barry.
