How Can We Be Friends

‘How can we be friends?’ he said.

       He spoke in that thick local accent that is so hard to understand because of the way it swallows the ends of words so that they sound like a firing of short, terse syllables. I was walking home from the gym and I had a podcast coming through my earphones so that his question did not register at first.

       Often when I walk someplace I get stopped at least once or twice because of the novelty that I represent. Sometimes it is because the solicitor wants just to greet me but mostly it is because someone wants to sell me something. In these cases I have found that wearing earphones is the surest and politest defense. Those who want to sell you something always begin with a greeting of some kind so that I acknowledge the gesture of greeting with one of my own and then quickly divert my attention as though I cannot hear the sales pitch that follows.

       ‘How can we be friends?’ he said again.

       I heard it and understood it this time and because of its strangeness I decided to respond.

       ‘These things just happen, I think,’ I said.

       He was an older boy but he was small and clear-faced so that he looked younger than he really was.

       ‘Where do you live?’ he said.

       ‘In Sinkor,’ I said, which is the neighborhood of Monrovia where we were.

       ‘No, I mean where is your house?’ he said.

       ‘Why?’

       ‘So that I can come visit you sometime,’ he said, his local accent breaking the last word into a staccato ‘son-tie’.

       ‘We need to be friends before that,’ I said.

       ‘OK,’ he said.

       He extended his hand and then I mine and we shook and then he walked away.

       ‘I guess he couldn’t argue with your logic,’ Jess said when I arrived home.

We Are on Patrol

‘Look at these guys,’ I said. ‘They look like they’re right out of the Hurt Locker.’

       There were two of them, short and stalky, and they wore thick, black protective equipment over dark blue fatigues. The protective padding was at least two centimeters thick in every place and in their shortness and for the padding that forced their legs apart as they strode, they looked to me like trolls.

       ‘They must be on patrol,’ Jess said.

       We were walking towards them and they towards us on Warner Avenue, which is just off the main boulevard that goes into downtown. We had just left the apartment and we were going to buy groceries  and have a beer and a late lunch at the restaurant of the nice hotel where we could watch football if we decided to sit inside. It was the afternoon after a gloomy morning of cloudiness and rain. Now the sun was emerging from behind the spent clouds. It was becoming warm and humid and the wide puddles and muddy sidewalks were beginning to dry.

       ‘What’s with all the gear?’ I said.

       ‘Maybe they are afraid someone will hurt them,’ she said.

       ‘Yeah but, if they are police or soldiers, they haven’t any weapons or even badges or insignia on their uniforms,’ I said.

       The two men stopped us where our courses met.

       ‘Hello. We are on patrol,’ the first said.

       Jess greeted them and I extended a hand for shaking, which seemed to surprise them.

       ‘We are on patrol,’ the second repeated after the greetings.

       ‘That’s good,’ Jess said, which seemed the most appropriate response that either of us could come up with.

       I looked at her standing beside them and I though what a fine funny sight they were: her so much taller and light skinned and gracefully slender and them so dark and short and thickset like bulldogs from the heavy protective equipment they wore all over.

       ‘We are on patrol and we haven’t any water,’ the first said.

       We both paused and it must have seemed as though we were considering the gravity of their situation.

       ‘Yes, we haven’t any water,’ the second said as though to emphasize the point.

       I looked at them and I did not recognize their uniforms. I had not seen any municipal police dressed as they were and I was not accustomed to seeing soldiers patrol the streets in this country. Mostly, I did not like that they had not any badge or name tag or insignia anywhere on them.

       ‘I’m sorry. We haven’t any water either,’ I said to them and I said, ‘Goodluck.’

       They looked disappointed and a bit bewildered as though they had not prepared for the possibility of this response but they did not detain us further as we began to continue our walk.

       ‘I think they wanted money to buy something to drink,’ Jess said.

       ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but could they really not have a dollar to buy water with?’

       She shrugged.

       ‘You know, once you start giving money to police or people who look like police on the street,’ I said without completing the thought.

       ‘Yeah,’ she agreed.

       ‘Anyway, it’s a far fucking cry from South Sudan, isn’t it?’ I said.

       She smiled and we continued our walk.

The Too-Big Chip

‘You can wait in the line at the store or I can have someone give you quick service right now,’ he said.

       His tone was labored as he motioned to the store where a few customers were queued and he smiled broadly at the end of his sentence. He wore a dress shirt and slacks and sweater vest with a pin that identified him as a ‘Customer Service Representative’.

       ‘And how would show my appreciation for the quick service?’ I said.

       ‘It is up to you,’ he said, smiling broadly at the end.

       I thought that I was in no particular hurry to purchase a new sim card for my phone and the line did not look so long, but also I thought that this is part of learning a place.

       ‘I will be happy for you to expedite the service,’ I said.

       He smiled and called the boys who wore company polo shirts and sat talking at a table under the shade of a canopy in front of the building. One of the boys detached from the group and approached.

       ‘This is my good friend,’ he said to the boy who came. ‘Treat him very well. Register him with a sim card. Make it double fast, please.’ Then he turned to me and he said, ‘The sim is five dollars. I will go to the store and get one for you.’

       I gave him the $5 and sat with the boy in the shade of the canopy while he went into the store. He returned shortly with the sim card and we opened my phone and found that the card was too large to fit in the slot.

       ‘This is a too-big chip,’ the boy said. ‘His phone needs the small one.’

       ‘Yes, I see that now,’ he said and turning to me, ‘the micro-sim is 10 dollars. I will try to return this to the store.’

       I gave him the $10. He went back to the store and was a long time in retrieving the micro-sim so that this was no longer the quick service it was advertised to be and I was annoyed.

       When he returned, he delivered the micro-sim to the boy who fitted it into the phone. In his other hand he still held onto the too-big chip.

       ‘They would not refund for this sim because the box is open and the chip has been detached from the card,’ he said, ending the sentence with the wide smile.

       I grinned because now I could see how this particular scam was done. The too-big chip was suddenly a convenient token of appreciation for the quick service, which had resulted to be not at all so quick as was broad-smilingly advertised. Of course, $5 is otherwise far too much to give for the few minutes of dragged out quick service unless you wanted to take the unneeded too-big chip with you and try to show appreciation with a few banknotes.

       When the micro-sim was fitted into the slot and the phone had registered the new network, I helped the boy to navigate the settings on my phone, which were all in Spanish. In Liberia it is a law that the cellular providers must maintain a database matching each number to a registered user with their name, birthdate, national ID number, and a photograph. If the sim card is not registered within a certain period of time, the provider will disconnect the phone number from the sim and eventually assign the number to a new customer. The boy recorded my information in his smartphone and attached a photograph of me taken from the phone’s camera. A few moments after he hit ‘send’, I received an sms that my number had been registered under my name.

       ‘So I was not able to get a refund for the other sim,’ said the Customer Service Representative representative as I checked the sms confirming that my number had been registered.

       ‘I suppose you will keep the sim and our business is finished here,’ I said.

       ‘Yes, that will be the good way,’ he said and waved the box containing the too-big chip in a gesture to the boy who had registered my phone number.

The Best Things Said

'I am a man.  I am meant to die anywhere.'

'All those good ideas...after a few drinks they mercifully fade away.'

'Yeah, debt and responsibility are a real kick in the balls.'

'There are two things you gotta have if you wanna make it: grit and reckoning.'

'I can't eat when I'm around you. You make me lose my appetite...I meant that in a good way.'

‘A veces, tal vez muy pocas, se tiene verdadera conciencia de que estás viviendo un momento valioso que no se repetirá ni siquiera recreando el mismo escenario. Qué maravillosa sensación!’

'Alright, the truth is that I love to lie.'

'Maybe I should have shown more gravel.'

'We are here at your gate but we can't come in. It seems I have insulted your security guard.'

'Do islands float?'

'God created the human being and they are blessed. So they do not worry what comes out of their body.'

'The priorities of this department are the hygiene and sanitation. And water. And hygiene and sanitation.'

'Why don't you sit down and think very well?'

How They Play the Game

I take a beer at the hotel bar as I read the news on my phone. Two women sit at the table across from me and I catch their glances from time to time. Eventually the younger of the two gestures to me. Neither is attractive and both are rotundly overweight but I join them at their table because I am a few days alone and this is what you do. They begin with the common pleasantries and my responses are succinct and absentminded but not rude, I think. I am in the mood for a conversation but I prefer that it be one I do not feel responsible for or that I would not be upset to walk away from.

       I ask them if they are guests at the hotel.

       ‘No,’ says the older of the two, ‘we just saw the place when we were passing on the street.’

       Then I knew that they are on the clock and this seems so very strange to me because they are so big and passed whatever prime they might have had.

       ‘Maybe you could buy us a drink,’ the older of the two says.

       ‘Sure, I can buy you a drink,’ I say, assenting because I have Kenyan shillings burning a hole in my pocket and because I am still curious about how they play the game.

       There are more pleasantries during the time when the drinks are ordered and poured and delivered. In the other room, two musicians are playing popular covers and a large group of young North American missionaries sing along, drink beer, and shuttle between their rooms and the restaurant.

       After a few pulls from her drink, the younger of the two ladies says, ‘I would like to give you a massage.’

       ‘Thank you but I don’t think that I am needing a massage,’ I say.

       ‘It would be like a thank you for buying the drinks,’ she explains and adds, ‘I like to give massages and I am very good.’

       ‘Thank you and I am sure you are,’ I reply, ‘but the drinks were my pleasure and I do not need anything in return.’

       We sit a while longer and the small talk continues. A curious rendition of ‘Thriller’ is now playing in the other room.

       ‘Maybe you would like to spend the night with me - in your room?’ the young one offers.

       I know that it has been coming to this and, it having come, I consider it, sort of as a small gesture to keeping an open mind about the world and its infinite possibilities. But the idea is unpleasant and the bearer of it can do nothing to dress up what it is.

       ‘Thank you,’ I say, smiling and making up a story because it seems the easier approach, ‘but I have a girl and I do not think she would like it much.’

       ‘She would not have to know.’

       ‘I would know,’ I say, ‘and, besides,’ I add, ‘she would know - they always know, don’t they.’

       She tries again but lets it go when she perceives it is my lack of interest not my loyalty to my imaginary girl that she persuading against.

       The pitch being made and rebuffed and remade and again rebuffed, the small talk is ended and we sit silently now. I finish my drink and I thank the ladies for their company and wish them a good night.

       ‘Maybe you could give money for a cab home,’ the older of the two suggests.

       ‘No sorry,’ I say as I am rising to my feet.

       ‘How about buying us another drink?’