Funny Scene II: Backlash (part two of four)

JAMES

Hold on. Hold on.

JAMES sets the monkey down and produces an object, wrapped in newspaper.

JAMES

Here.

The monkey tears free a set of golden set of dog tags. One tag bears the inscription, “If found, please return to the Kiev zoo,” below which is the address. The other tag is inscribed, in block letters:

SANGRE.

JAMES

So?

The monkey puts on the gift, and holds out his skinny alien arm, at the end of which is a fist. They bump fists. We catch a glimpse of CALAMARI, hoisted into a wheel barrow by village construction workers.

JAMES

Get that looked at .

JAMES drops a 10 Dirhams coin on CALAMARI’s heaving chest as the wheelbarrow passes.



EXT: Aftas Surfer Café. Morning.



JAMES eats breakfast. At the communal table are two British surfers. HORACE, who looks as if he is still recovering from ‘shaken baby syndrome,’ and a blonde, dreadlocked surfer elegantly known as, RASTA.

The restaurant’s tables are set up on one side of a road. Officially a road, it is geared more for people than cars, as it parallels the beach and leads nowhere. We see village fishermen hauling their garish, blue wooden-boats up the beach.

HORACE

Bloody hell!

A maintenance van discharging diesel fumes, crawls down the narrow passage where Aftas is set-up. Everyone is forced to interrupt their meals and move the tables and benches against the wall.

RASTA

Doin’ his job I suppose.

SANGRE scampers by. We spot him amidst the beached, village fishing boats, impishly chasing cats. The fishermen, keeping to their schedule, are now either loitering or aggressively playing cards.

JAMES

There are other roads.

The van passes, the tables are replaced and eating resumes.

A short moment later, the same van reappears.

HORACE

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

JAMES

Douche?! Douche-y! Does that translate?

This is funny for the group.

RASTA

I’d say that one’s pretty universal.

Van wedges through. Eating resumes. The monkey is seen in the background, petting a sleeping, one-eyed kitten in the prow of a boat.

HORACE

At six weeks in, takes something like this to remind you how shit their attitudes are.

RASTA

That was unbelievable, really.

JAMES

There’s a certain hostility here

RASTA

Have you encountered the difficulties walking about?

CUT TO RASTA's reenactment.

EXT. DAY BUSY Street, Agadir

Rasta casually walks down a narrow sidewalk bordering a busy street.

He alters his path, expecting the man in the yellow djellaba to do the same.

Instead, the man moves directly towards RASTA. RASTA loses his balance and falls into the hood of a parked hatchback.

END RASTA’s REENACTMENT

HORACE

 

I walk straight at em’ now, bastards.

CUT TO HORACE REENACTMENT:

EXT. DAY: RASTA's same Agadir street 

 HORACE spots a woman bending over a stroller, tending to a baby.

HORACE moves aggressively at this mother and child.

The woman leaps up and manages to pull her stroller away. She stumbles and falls backward onto the street. HORACE does not alter his course.

We see HORACE trying not to smile.

END HORACE REENACTMENT

JAMES

 Good tactic.

RASTA

Myself, I’ve put a stop to saying ‘Salaam’ to the locals.

CUT TO RASTA'S REENACTMENT:

EXT. Evening. back alleys of Taghazout



Smiling, RASTA offers:

RASTA 

Salaam.

 The man leaning in the doorway of a dingy Coiffure, does not respond.
He continues to stare: intense and hostile.

RASTA, moving past the coiffure, smiles and says:

RASTA

Salaam 

The proprietor of the Mohammed Shop turns and stands facing a dark corner of the shop until long after RASTA is past.

END REENACTMENT

 
 

PART THREE OF FOUR TOMORROW

 

Picture of the Day

In the hills above Taghazout- I find an ominous looking pipe that seems to be slowly inhaling the subsequent wall.

FUNNY SCENE II: BACKLASH (Part One of Four)

Apparently, these screeds I have been slipping into the internet have attracted the scrutiny of a certain clique of pre-teen girls. For the most part, they are students at Central Ohio’s Rutherford B. Hayes’ Family Values Charter School. Here in my African hovel, I have been suffering a monsoon season of emails and text messages from this most unwanted readership.


In their dull-minded, but dogged communications, they are either pouting, or they are launching crude ad hominem attacks, taking issue with my choice of "Traveling With a Monkey" as a title:

“’Traveling With a Monkey?’ I don’t get it. Uhnh!”

(there is audible scrunching of their noses while they emit that nasal “Uhnh!”).

“What is this even about?”

Raising their brows while scrunching their noses:

“Okay. So…you have an imaginary friend, but it’s not a person? You imagine being friends with a monkey? Loser.”

In fact, these sophomoric, taunting letters have grown in volume to the point where I have hired an old Moroccan gentleman, Omar, to aid me in my correspondence. He is quite proud of the position.

Last week, when I met Omar, he was a roving vendor carrying only three items, each a dubious vessel of sorts: one unbroken rock, allegedly containing quartz crystals, one desiccated scorpion, entombed in a semi-clear plastic keychain, and one tan, tattered-leather shaving kit from the ‘Kalvin Cline’ collection.

The online presence of this colorful local entrepreneur may also explain the uptick in Nigerian Scam emails many of you are experiencing. I have not been able to confirm his involvement, but nonetheless, I truly apologize.

I am preparing, fairly soon, to say farewell, for now, to Morocco (in an attempt to dissuade certain Hamburg-based stalkers, I am intentionally keeping my travel plans obscured). A primate friend, an old friend actually, has taken special leave from the Kiev zoo to give me a proper send-off. Hopefully my hyperbolic account of his anticipated visit will silence that chorus of mocking Ohioan Jonas Brothers fans.

If I am effective, and the flow of emails relents, I have assured Omar a continued place on the payroll, but in a reduced, advisory capacity only. To my young tormentors, I offer the following evidence, meant also as an olive branch.

This is the debut of the second installment of FUNNY SCENE.

Traveling with a Monkey:

Morocco

or

The Backlash

EXT. DAY. Taghazout, Morocco

We see two POSTMEN unloading a van, the official mail transport. It is unmarked and has weathered into shades of grey and pink. There are many small deliveries for the Berber fishermen.

                              MOROCCAN POSTMAN 1

Derisively

                      Ees surfer.

Their dust-colored djellabas flutter as they work.
They extract a wooden crate addressed to a western name.
We see the stenciled letters: live contents. The men heave the box roughly into the road.

                          MOROCCAN POSTMAN 1

Pointing

             Eee! Eee!

MOROCCAN POSTMAN 2 continues unloading packages into the street.

We move in closer to the crate. A simian form glowers behind wooden slats. MOROCCAN POSTMAN 1 removes his Moroccan-style cap, and now begins a little taunting song.

                            MOROCCAN POSTMAN 1:

              Ooohhh. Ahhhh. I-eeee

This odd, high-pitched song is now accompanied by an equally bizarre, gyrating dance. We are suddenly unclear whether his intentions are antagonistic or amorous.

                          MOROCCAN POSTMAN 2:

               Raheed!

POSTMAN 1 or Raheed, acknowledges his partner for an instant, but waves him off. Now Raheed turns back to the crate. He lowers his face to the box, pulling on his ears, and extending his tongue.

                         MOROCCAN POSTMAN 2:

                          Raheed.



A spider monkey arm snakes through a wooden slat and strikes.

RAHEED screams. His screams become a gurgling noise.

His mouth is open-  too painful now, to shut.
We see that his tongue has been monkey-pawed into dangling, bloody tentacles.

JAMES enters, apparently his hooded, slits of eyes do not register the violence. JAMES saunters past RAHEED, who will now be known in the village as, CALAMARI.

                            JAMES

                 Is that you?

The monkey thrashes violently at the box as JAMES coos.

                           JAMES               

                            I see you!

JAMES is wearing mismatched flip-flops, salvaged from the nearby beach. He pulls apart the crate, and the Costa Rican Spider Monkey is reunited with James, monkey-nibbling his neck.


PART TWO TOMORROW

Picture of the Day

 A grizzeled old bucket left in the hills above Taghazout.

Picture of the Day

Uninhabited building in the hills overlooking Taghazout

Picture of the Day

I venture into the hills above town...

Picture of the Day

The main square- Friday market day

La Vague

With an empty 1.5 liter Ciel-brand water bottle, I pounded on the wall of my Taghazout apartment like a drunken madman for about half an hour this morning. In a sleepy stupor, I tried to out-play the bastard, but he would wait for me to tire, and begin again, quickening his pace, finding new angles for enhanced amplification; he was having a great fucking time of it. I will be truly insane with this chipping away at my sleep, this chiseling through the realm of my dreams.

Incessant and metallic pounding, has drilled into my room every day this week. The action commences precisely at eight in the morning and ends just past sundown, at six thirty. The first time, I thought it was the landlady pounding away, hounding me for cash- another ridiculous and almost equally aggravating scenario, I assure you.

It turns out that some poor asshole with a hammer and chisel toils away at the exterior stucco of the building. Remember hearing about Abu Ghraib- how they played music at all hours as a form of torture? Well this little fucker has elevated the game with his homage to Chinese water torture. It is a rhythmic, penetrating tapping- like pounding two rocks together. Hell, if you want to hear it, just pound a hammer on a cement floor.

Tonight, to recompose myself, I had a lovely dinner at my favorite restaurant. It is La Vague, a small French place with actual service, charming presentation and a semblance of atmosphere (the antithesis of every other establishment in town).

At dinner, I had my notebook, and I noted how it felt good there, forgetting the sounds of metal on rock. An attractive couple at a neighboring table seemed, tonight at least, ‘happy and in love.’ Three British young-professionals in dark cashmere sweaters bantered wittily at the table behind me- a nice contrast to the semi-vagrant, empty-eyed surfers and glaring locals.

The proprietress/waitress was cheerful and patient with my French, and her husband/chef, lovingly torched crème brulees in the open-air kitchen, while incongruously blasting Pink Floyd’s “Division Bell.” The owner’s child, a squat, curly-haired boy, of say, seven, spun around in the courtyard in front of us, enamoring us with a parody of traditional break-dance form.

It was pleasant. I gave them some Dirhams, and headed towards my favorite spot for internet, Café Auberge.

As I made my way down the dark and uneven ground towards the Café, I was met with a cold and ugly thing.

Death-shouts in French and Arabic. I heard the yelling while in the dark of the alley. I moved towards it. The scene began to emerge. Pedestrians slowly gave way to me, but seemed immobilized and listening, alert like prairie dogs.

Aftas outdoor restaurant was a brawl. A violent throng. Shouting and pushing. Women screaming ‘no’ and ‘stop it.’

They were intertwined in the form of a volcano. There were perhaps fifteen participants entangled in an unnatural high-five. Some were trying to restrain their friends while others wailed and clawed at each other over the sea of restraining arms.

Every other fight I have witnessed is a brief lashing out. This was a sustained battle. The front lines welled up into each other. The pace was sickeningly leisurely, like a car sliding slowly off the icy road.

Usually, there is the expectation that “authority” will step in. It’s “oh shit, the cops,” or “guys, guys, let’s go. We’re gonna get in trouble.” This battle raged in a central area, without fear of intervention. One lanky youth pulled out of the fight, removed his shirt, and casually rejoined.

I didn’t want to see it, oddly. Usually I like to see a fight. Maybe the morning hammer has chipped away at that place in me. It is always easy for me to talk about my affinity for anarchy, but to hold its arm and feel it pulsing in my hand is unsettling so soon after dinner. Tonight, I would prefer my anarchy at a distance, please.

In my last piece, I described the surfer’s hangout, Aftas Restaurant, and the “spell” of being here in Taghazout, and I included Fergle’s apparently premonitory statement that, people get “fucking pissed,” when the spell is broken. This night had always been there, it just needed time to hack its’ way into the open.

The local fishermen stood silently in entryways, with their standard weathered and judging visages. They make me think of certain old-timers I’ve met, the ones who shake their heads and mutter, ‘kids,’ or ‘it’s the drugs.’ Tonight, I imagine them frowning to each other, saying, ‘infidels,’ and ‘Anglais.’ 
Patrons stood transfixed in the entry of Café Auberge. They were like the flies I had watched gather in the blood of The Brit’s wounded toe. One of the French waitresses has a small black and white puppy. I play with her and let her bite my hand (the puppy). The waitress stood rigidly in the cafe entrance with her face twisted unnaturally, making a low, ‘uhh,’ sound. I turned from the clash, and squeezed past the entranced faces, making my way into the building.

Picture of the Day

Cat that lives below my balcony

Picture of the Day