Showing Teeth

December 8, 1995

I dreamed last night that I was in Marrakech at my second home. It was nighttime. I walked into a big convention of people and since I wasn’t comfortable with it all, I left. I suddenly found myself in Dallas, walking up the steep driveway to the wooden gate of the Pasadena house I lived in as a kid. I opened the door to the backyard and found a big burnt orange dog showing its teeth (much like Ancie, K’s dog). I walked right up to him and past him. Then we were all in the van with the family, even Matthew. We were on a trip somewhere because we had luggage. I reached into a Ziploc bag, got out my two favorite mixed tapes, and handed them to Matthew.

The scene switched again. I was at a party with other Peace Corps volunteers. Everyone looked very elegant, like we were fresh out of Miami Vice or Beverly Hills. I walked into an office with fluorescent lights to the far-left booth. It was a kind of architect’s firm. Separated from us was another glassed-in room like you see at radio stations, and behind the glass was Molly, laughing with another woman. I needed to change shirts so I looked around. It was clear. I saw no men. Just as I took off my shirt, Molly banged on the glass and pointed to a chair behind me. A black man was sitting there.

I woke up confused. I was in too many places and I didn’t stay long enough in one to get comfortable. For two days I’ve been contemplating on where to put this pen. In a letter to K? A letter to my mother? To this journal? Somehow I feel I’m waiting for the emotions to fade and I don’t think they will. I’ve been wanting to squeeze my eyes shut, shake my head back and forth to get this dream out of me and wake up. I’m still here though. It’s not a dream. I am falling in love. There’s no two ways about it.

When I was standing at that revving bus, something happened. I stormed out of the gallery determined to leave and not come back. I was sad about it but I had decided. I ignored his callings down the narrow street: “Dorian! Dorian! Come back here! Dorian!”

At the taxi, with K at my side, I got anxious. I couldn’t figure out why we were standing so long when there was a taxi right in front of us. I looked around. The taxi driver was playing wrestling games with another man on the curb, with no intention of hurrying, so I stuck my arm out at another taxi turning the corner and ran for the car door. K yelled, “What are you doing? This one’s first.”

I came back over, got in the backseat, and told K not to get in. The driver got in the front seat and told Kabir to get in. During the taxi ride to the bus station he told his side of the story to the driver. Whatever it was I couldn’t understand. My Arabic needs help.

At the bus station, determined to leave but thinking I’d have enough time to have coffee beforehand, I was a bit taken back to see the bus revving to go and the man reaching for my bags to put underneath. Then with K reaching out for me saying, “I don’t want to lose you. You can’t leave like this. It will only make it harder,” I got lost.

I went off in my own world there. Do I run away? Do I stay? I heard “I don’t want to lose you,” over and over in my head. Every time he’d reach for me I’d pull away and turn around pacing. He’d come back and lead me away. I’d pull away and turn around. Then the bus door slammed, the engine revved, and the bus drove off. I was left standing in an empty parking lot with K. We went for coffee.

We sat outside against a wall and drank our coffee, both of us facing forward. He turned his head to me. Then he looked forward again. “I love you,” he said. Then he made a face, like he ate something too sour and said under his breath, “No. Now how can I say I love you? I can’t.” He turned back to me, and said, “I love you.”

I enjoyed watching him desperate for a taxi to go home. Freezing with a short sleeve shirt on, he stood next to the curb while I sat up on a half wall next to a little girl. “You need one of those, that’s what you need,” he said, looking at the little girl with her head and elbows on her knees.

As a taxi pulled up, the little girl’s mother ran straight for it. So did another man. Kabir asked where the man was going. Then he asked the woman. He suggested they ride together since they were headed in the same direction. And the three of them got in. All the bags were on the top of the car. K yelled to take the woman’s bag off the roof, so the man did. “Put it in your lap.” So he did. And they drove off.

I wondered then how he was able to do such things, organize stranger’s lives and have them listen. He could have left them alone to deal with the taxi. Instead, he jumped right in and took control. He was shivering in the cold, with his hands shoved in his pockets, after the taxi drove off.

The next morning, when I walked into the courtyard, I looked at him in his office through the doorway. Sipping from his coffee he said, “You know what? This thing called Dorian and K. People are going to like this story.”