Outside Assilah: the 24-hour Grift
Excerpt from MOROCCO (MANHOOD)
We sat down at the Tangiers train station in the early morning, preparing to head to the mountain town of Chefchouan, a few hours east. David and I wanted to get as quickly as we could out of the brash rainbow city, which had, after only a day, bled our wallets and tugged us a dozen ways. We wanted to dip south and distance ourselves from the strain of Spain that the Moroccans here seemed to feel. It was not our desire to approach Africa as tourists, to see ourselves as tiny scratches in the wheel of a dizzy industry. We wanted to get to know the people, apart from all the wheeling and dealing and picture taking.
We spent some time in the café in front of the station and ordered two coffees. The waiter arrived and set the cups down, which had half-inch syrupy dribbles on the bottom, and poured in steamed milk. Before he could finish, a man in his fifties in a blue jean jacket snuck up from behind, making him spill a bit. Blue Jean Jacket "tsk tsk tsked" the waiter and told us sorry. He found a packet of cigarettes in his pocket and asked if he could join us, introducing himself as the manager of the place. He told us his whole family worked here. His English was sturdy and he had a likeable warmth. We got to telling stories and had many laughs. At one point, he looked at my beard and said, "Ali Baba! Very similar!" and I felt welcome.
I blinked and he got up and ran inside, presumably to go tend to his patrons. We got hungry. I stood up and did a small circle in the café, watched by all, and within seconds he was directly behind me and asked over my shoulder if all was good. I asked him for a bit of food for us, something suitable for David's allergy. Blue Jean Jacket dashed away again, for longer this time, and we rested. He returned with a luscious salad for David and a breadfruit marmalade dish for me.
He sat down, and, within seconds, he looked over my shoulder and called out his friend's name, who happened to be passing by. Shaking his head, the man pulled up a chair and the two laughed at the great coincidence of running into each other like this. They told us it had been months. The friend was even friendlier, with a mustache and glassy pearl eyes that seemed to be full of honesty and faith. He wore a little ball cap and told us he spoke nearly no English, though his bits of conversation suggested otherwise.
Blue Jean Jacket told us that Pearl Eyes was from Ketama, which has one of the worst reputations in Morocco. In recent years, some hash-smoking Spanish journalists went to Ketama to live for some months, relaxing in the mountains, making friends with the locals, and subsequently smoking lots of their crop. It got to the point where they were able to tour the fields with the farmers and even take pictures, which they brought back to Spain and exploded in the media. It caused an uproar, enraging the leadership in Ketama, triggering a crackdown on hash planting and usage. New laws were brashly and hastily instilled and the place quickly became very dangerous. Dealers were more protective of their product, more demand than supply, illegalization, etcetera.
Our new friends told us that much of this activity had spread to Chefchouan: hasslers, grifters, and pesky dealers. The last thing we wanted after our frenetic romp in the Tangiers Medina. They casually told us of a beach town where all is cool, cool, cool. Just relaxation, no worries, and very little tourists. Have some time to sit back and dream. These words commingled with one of the last things Wes told us before running alongside our bus like a schoolboy as we pulled out of Coll de Nargo: "Assilah is one of the best towns in Morocco."
These two guys weren't pushing it at all. Nothing was remotely suspicious. Just conversation. David and I decided we'd rather go to Assilah, so the pearl-eyed man offered to do us the favor of returning our ticket for a full refund. He went over and talked to the ticket-take and negotiated in Arabic and came back with the money, every cent of it. A Grande Taxi is the most efficient way to get to Assilah, so we were off, shooting west. We bid farewell to Blue Jean Jacket, who told us to look for him here whenever we were back in Tangiers. In that moment, I believed we would never see him again.
Pearl Eyes flagged down a driver of enormous size with sunken eyes and hands that could puree my head. He said he'd share the taxi with us to Assilah, that he has family there. We hopped in and finally got out of Tangiers. He turned around in his seat and talked to us much like our first guide. I felt that this man truly had a good heart. He talked about the safety in Morocco, the true Muslim way of life, to open one's heart to his neighbors and live according to virtue. He and Blue Jean Jacket were both Berbers, an ethnic group that makes up nearly 30 percent of Morocco's population.
They were a people the former described as "Like the train. BOOM. Direct and straightforward. We hide nothing." To elucidate his point, he had made a PSSSHHHEEEW sound and closed one of his eyes as if looking at a pinpoint through a telescope. By the next morning, I would be pondering endlessly what that meant.
The huge taxi driver blazed alongside the beach and we got our first breath of fresh air since the ferry from Spain. It smelled nice and felt good to be away from people and to feel like we were in good hands. Thirty minutes later, we entered Assilah and then promptly drove out.
We weren't worried, but mild questions were starting to form. The driver pulled off onto a dirt road and we found ourselves in the midst of dozens of Berber people, swaddled in traditional clothes, walking with plows, carrying large bundles of sticks on their backs. I saw a small boy herding six skinny cows up a hill and throwing rocks at them to get them to move. We winded up the bumpy path, up a large hill and found ourselves in the dead center of this Berber village. Poor barely described it. Very small, one-room houses, men dripping with sweat in the surrounding fields. The stillness surrounding all the backbreaking work highlighted the inclusive industry, the desperate self-reliance. After just a thirty-minute drive from the city, the chopping and digging couldn’t hide the disquieting calm.
We stepped out of the cab and all of the children stared at us as we gathered our bags and followed our friend. He led us into the tiny dwelling of a very frail man in his fifties wearing a stocking cap. His entire family cramped inside. The patriarch sat with his teenage son on the couch and we exchanged greetings in Arabic. The little boy leapt up and jumped into my lap and kissed my cheek and put his hand over his heart to welcome me. The women of the village came in one by one to greet us. One of them said "Adios" as she left and giggled. The patriarch led us into another small home next door, which had a huge bed and ornate couches lining the walls. We were once again drunk on the otherness of everything and unable to walk, only float, wherever we were led.
Try preparing yourself for this all you want, but it’s impossible when all your preparation is done in First World cafés and trains. Hold your breath, something is slipping away.
We put down our bags and Pearl Eyes calmly led us out of the house and further up the village on foot. We passed pastures of docile cows, rows of popcorn trees, and hard-working children. He quietly walked in front of us and I felt like I was looking through the lens of Gus Van Sant and Harris Savides in Elephant or Last Days, where the character traverses a yawning space of changing light, distant sounds add story and texture, and the horizon promises the unknown. He peaked over the hill and the Atlantic lay before us, splayed out under cascading fertile hills, whose green grass ended literally feet from the water. It was magnanimous and filled our hearts until we had to sit down. He stared off into the surf, slowly smoking a cigarette, and said, "No one here. Just the Berber people. No tourists. No hassle."
In that moment, it was true.
"How long you think you will be in Morocco?" he asked.
"Hmmm," I said, looking at the lapping surf. "A month sounds good."
"Ah, you are one of the good ones. You take time with this country. That is very good."
I was breathing again.
He led us back down to the guesthouse and we sat on the couches and piping hot sugar-loaded Moroccan tea was served, which we all slurped loudly. The owner walked in with a terrible, gnarled limp, carrying a plate of patisseries. We sat around as he told our friend in Arabic that he had just had surgery to remove a lump from his head, and when he came out of it, his leg wasn't functioning properly. His eyes were red and lightly watered. Pearl Eyes turned to us and said, "There are those who are up, up, up, very rich, and the rest are poor. This man is very poor." The sick man stared straight ahead for a moment, whispered a few Arabic words, and painfully walked out of the room.
Our friend gave us some pillows and begged us to relax. He turned to the wall and fell asleep. I rolled on my side and tried to fight back tears, not able to cope with being treated so regally by people who had so little. The three of us napped and my half-awake dreams were just shapes interspersed with mom and dad and the faces of those across the great pond. I woke up to the sound of Pearl Eyes sipping his tea. He stood up in the dusty dark room and walked outside. A moment passed and he re-entered.
He was followed by Blue Jean Jacket.
II
Blue Jean Jacket took a seat. Shortly after, a portly Arab man entered and told us he was from Portugal. Pearl Eyes took David into the kitchen and together they made lamb tajine, the deep, red, passion soup, along with an olive dish, an enormous tahini salad, heaping piles of bread, and spiced oranges. And we feasted. I ate so much I could barely move.
"I didn’t expect to see you again," I said.
"I come here because the best stuff is here," Blue Jean Jacket said, putting a flame to a condensed little ball of hash. "We have a saying we live by." Licking the joint. "Smoke the best, fuck the rest." He smiled up at me and asked for a high five. "Ahhhhhh." He blew out air and put his hands on his gut. "Best place in the world for this."
We sat in a circle. Portugal eyed David and me sideways at the outset but after the first toke he was fogged over and one of those smiles crossed over his face like why do any of us fight why do we ever fight if we could all just sit in a big room like this…if we could all just sit in a big room like this.
It was all cool. I barely took my eyes off Blue Jean Jacket. He was on our left. Pearl Eyes to our right. I blew out a cloud of blue smoke and said to Blue Jean Jacket with a snicker, "What was your name again?"
"Sharif."
"And you?" To Pearl Eyes.
"Hassan."
Sharif leaned into me and said, "You ever thought about a djellaba?"
"They’re interesting, for sure."
He clapped his dusty hands and said, "Stand up." I stood up. "Big man you are. Big and strong, no?" he said as he took my measurements.
"Yeah."
He said I would be respected walking around with one of these djellabas, these full, hooded robes. Like a giant white ewok. One of the people, not a tourist. He said I’d be able to walk through the streets in any town in Morocco and people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. I’ll give you a good price. No, I don’t want one. Don’t worry about money, it’s not about the money. It’s about respect. Really, not for me. Give me a price. Zero. I don’t want one.
It was soon clear that Portugal was here to buy hash and they sorted out their prices and Hassan said something to me like, "Some hash would be nice, no?" And I don't remember how I responded, but it was something to the effect of, "Yeah, sounds good." To be polite.
Sharif and Hassan called for a taxi and told David and me to show Portugal the vista del mar while we waited. They left and we stayed at the beach long enough for Portugal to get a call on his cell, shout one word in Arabic, then beckon us to follow him back up to the village, where our two friends awaited us, telling us of brilliant news, Humdallah, thanks be to God. Back in the guesthouse, they gave a colossal brick of hash to Portugal and he handed them a cumbersome wad of cash.
Portugal said thanks, then a few words in Arabic, and tried to leave. Hassan put his hand up and told him he must smoke with all of us.
"This isn’t just a business deal. We’re family here. This is custom."
Portugal looked nervously at Sharif and pivoted his fat body over to the couch and took a few more "customary" hits on the spliff until his eyes were bloody red. Finally Hassan let him go, as if he had measured his exit in tokes.
Portugal left and they told us that he'd be swallowing all of it for his flight back to Europe, whereupon he'd probably cough or shit everything out into the streets of Lisbon.
"We don’t ask questions," said Sharif, as Hassan fished around in his pocket. "It’s not our position to ask questions. We just do business."
Hassan pulled his hand out of his pocket and put a big piece of hash on the table in front of us and said, "Please, that's 3000 dirham apiece," which is roughly 600 U.S. dollars. My heart dropped to my knees. When Hassan saw our confusion and refusal, his pearly lamb eyes turned to stones and his body tensed up. We were higher than these strange mountains.
"Wh-wh-what? No, no, we don’t want to buy that much."
We tried to explain our mistake, but he said it did not matter, that he had used his own money, put a great deal of risk in this, and that there was no way to return it. Suddenly, though, his English wasn’t very good, so he fired off Arabic at us, pointing his little finger, while Sharif translated.
"He went out to go find the best hash on Earth and ran into his good friend, a farmer, on his way up the mountain. He asked him if he had any of the good stuff and he gave him the very last he had. His friend did him a favor. He did you a favor. Now his friend is gone."
Sharif was the cool, calm, yet ominous, mediator. "You have made him angry. Please, pay this man. He has gone a great distance for you and now he says you treat him like a child."
"How are we treating him like a child? We didn’t agree on anything! We said, ‘Sure, a little bit of hash would be nice.’ To smoke!"
Sharif translated. Hassan listened and then started speaking quickly and loudly in Arabic. He refused to look at us now.
"He tells me you said you’d be in Morocco for a month, so he got you a month’s worth of hash. What’s the problem? This was the deal."
"There was no deal!" I yelled.
"Do you think we are children!? We offered you the best of the best, like friends. Not everyone is good like us, you know."
"We didn’t ask for 6000 dirham worth of hash," said David. While I raised my voice, his was distant and far away, as if at sea. Fear can enter the room cloaked in mystery.
The argument ebbed and flowed, angry, calm, through sunset. Hassan pulled in to a furious, red-purple ball. Night fell outside.
"Look at me," said Sharif. I looked at him. "This big meal we cooked for you, the little bit of the good stuff we let you smoke. That’s all good. It’s Moroccan custom. We share, ‘like your home’. You can get the first meal free, but do not expect the second. You cannot get the best in life for free forever."
David and I insisted to be let out so we could talk alone for five minutes, which did not get us very far. Whether this was a 24-hour grift or not was not our concern. These men might have been acting, playing good cop/bad cop, angry businessman and delegate, but it was not important. Everything here tonight was our word against theirs. We kept stalling but we did not know to what end.
"This is so bad," I whispered.
"I’m not going to pay them anything," whispered David.
"What the fuck are we supposed to do then?"
"We hold out and tomorrow we leave."
"They’re not gonna let us leave without taking our money."
They beckoned us back in.
"Even if we wanted it," said David, "We don’t have that kind of money."
"No problem," said Sharif. "We’ll go to Assilah tomorrow and you can withdraw it from the machine."
We didn't even want the hash, but we tried to talk them down as best we could, to no avail. I tried to make my point loud and clear, to overwhelm them, and they both got hyper-heated and veins formed. So I backed off, and spoke in a guttural whisper, but they’d then pretend they didn’t understand, the fabric of my words lost in translation. Whichever method I tried, it played against me, and we got further from a solid solution.
I suddenly remembered a story my uncle told me about something that happened to him in Guatemala in the miasmic seventies. He and his friend awoke at knifepoint and their supposed friends, whom they’d spent days with, stole everything from them. Then the guys disappeared for a while and, when they returned, the cops, their compadres, followed them and my uncle barely bribed his way out of prison, or worse.
I told Hassan and Sharif that I didn't trust the situation, that I suspected they knew the police, and this briefly diffused everything. We had the court. They spent thirty minutes explaining to me that this was the furthest thing from the truth. I believed them. I had no other choice. We continued discussing and arguing and Sharif told us he was going to go get some wine and beers for the night. We were already resigned to being here, so why not go deeper down the rabbit hole?
After Sharif left, my head spiraled into paranoia. Did Sharif really work at the restaurant? Who was Portugal? Was he in on it? I was ready for Sharif to return with his cop friends and demand an even bigger bounty. Every time I tried to go outside for fresh air, Hassan would pull me back inside and tell met to relax, that I was acting crazy. Thankfully, Sharif returned with just alcohol and we bargained Hassan down to a less horrible price, our bribe, which we agreed to pay the next day after withdrawing money in Assilah.
We all shook hands and had a few drinks. The theme of the rest of the night was "openness," of being honest with one another, of "sharing the night as brothers." Businessmen after hours. After only two glasses of wine, Sharif got blistering drunk.
I closed my eyes and opened them and Sharif had David up on his feet, trying to get him to dance to Lionel Ritchie. David wisely held back and Sharif spun around and danced by himself. Hassan stood from the couch, cut in past David and grabbed his friend by the waist and these two fully-grown men held each other and swayed around the little room to "All Night Long."
David slowly snuck back to the couch.
"David, where you going? Ha ha ha! Watch this!"
Hassan spun in a circle and hopped up and down like a clown. They fell down on the couch together and showed us the "Berber way to fuck," performing a sort of entangled homoerotic pantomime. David put his hand on his knife.
Sharif pushed Hassan back into his seat like a bitch and his drunken eyes floated over to me as I sit next to him. Fuck Lionel Ritchie.
"Really, though, for a good price, I could arrange for you to fuck anything you want."
"Drop it, Sharif, I don’t want anything from you," I snapped.
"Whoa, whoa, Brother," he said, putting his hands up all slimy sick cool. "All cool, brother, no problem. Like we say, ‘kick back, relax, smoke the best-’"
"I know, ‘fuck the rest.’"
"Ahhhh ha ha! Yeah! High five!" he screamed. We slapped hands hard, which dislodged the cancer in his lungs and he freefell into a revolting and hysterical coughing fit that went on for minutes. He silently rocked back and forth, his eyes black and his face veiny purple. David and I laughed at first, thinking he was exaggerating (because it really was so horribly over-the-top). When his eyes rolled back and his mouthed opened in an oval and the phlegmy gurgling started, we stopped.
"Jesus," David said. He got up. "Can I get you something?"
"No!" Hassan snapped. "Let him finish." He looked sadly at Sharif as he rocked. Finally, the cancer retracted and he shook off the fit, laughing.
Hassan tsk-tsk-tsked, paused, and said, "I don’t fuck you now." The two of them roared in laughter as David and I stared blankly at each other.
I thought to myself that if we were going to get through the night, we were going to have to out-crazy these two, throw them off-balance like they did to us.
"Hassan."
"Yeah?"
"You said you’re an actor, right?"
"Yes."
"You know I make films back home, right?"
"Yes."
"So why don’t you give us a little audition, up there."
"What you want me to do?"
"Get up there! I don’t know, prove to all of us you’ve got what it takes."
Hassan, with his pearly drunk eyes, didn’t fully understand, so he looked to Sharif for an Arabic translation, after which he rolled to his feet and took the stage.
"You live near Mexico?" he asked me.
"Yes, close," I said.
"People say I can do a good Mexican."
He sagged his pants down and flipped his hat around like a south San Antonio vato and did this strangely accurate hood-walk. "Ooh, ooh, yeah," he pointed like a gangster. Sharif downed another beer. I sprang up to my feet and said to David, "He’s got the look, right?"
"Yeah, he’s pretty close."
"But you’re not saying the right words," I said. Hassan looked concerned, listening carefully to my critique.
"I don’t fully believe you. Say, ‘Get at me holmes.’"
"Geetat mehomz."
"There ya go, now, ‘Back off Puto.’"
"Bkoff pootoh."
"Good!" I screamed too loud, taking him off-guard. "You got the part, now sit down."
This got the two riled up even more. I plopped back down next to Sharif and he leaned in close to me and with his briny heartburn breath said, "I like you. From now on, I call you Youssef."
"Youssef!" screamed Hassan.
David stood up to stretch and went outside to piss. He came back in and adjusted his belt and pulled up his pants. His money pouch folded up and opened and poured out all of its contents. After our long, agonizing promises that we had no money to give, hundreds of dollars floated in front of everyone’s eyes. Credit cards, insurance cards, and passport spilled out onto the floor and under couches.
Down, down, down. David got on his hands and knees, trying to retrieve what was his. Like a true actor, Hassan popped back in to freak-out mode. He lowered down on the floor next to David.
"Wait, wait," Hassan said. "I help you."
In one quick motion, he scooped up all the dollar bills, eight hundred American in all.
"Here you go," he said to David, and proceeded to hand them out one-by-agonizing-one. "One. Twooo. Thrreee. Foooourrr. Fiiiiiive…"
I sunk into the couch and laughed out loud. What the hell else could I do?
"Thanks," said David.
"Oooh!" said Hassan, plowing the couch. "There’s one more! Niiiinnne."
I had no idea David was touting this much cash. What was he thinking? He righted himself and put everything back in the "hidden pouch," which hugged his privates. Private. Hidden. Ha. We all toasted and gulped down beer and rose.
Then more.
Sharif became rip-roaring drunk after only about five or so. I’m pretty good at following the trains of thought of the drunk. You can be very drunk and very lucid at the same time if you’re having a connection with someone. Moments and memories can be strong and vibrant. But not with Sharif. Souped.
"Yurr a filmmaker, yeah? Didjaayou know, ya know, I’mmuh writer. You come to the, ya come in Morocco, what’s yr storeee. You cun, I’ll not give yuu my stohree, but gimmmeee rights… David! What’re you doing, what’s yr friend doing? He’s not, he’s not here with me right now, ya know? He’s lonely. Wanzta leave. Daavid! Looka me, k? Howre yu doinn?"
Hassan tried to read David’s palms and give him a back massage. Both attempts seemed to be infused with very real sincerity.
Sharif tried to get up to use the restroom and fell down flat on his face, laughing like a dying cow.
Finally, sleep was absolutely crucial. None of us could take this much longer. I took the big bed on the other side of the room and poor David was forced to sleep against the wall in between our friends. I laid there in the dark, listening to the two of them slip off to noisy sleep, hearing only silence from David. Every so often throughout the night, Sharif would jolt out of sleep and focus his attention on him.
"David. Daaaa-viiiid."
"What?"
"Will you talk to me? C’mon, what’s on your mind?"
I weighed the option of strangling the two men as they slept and taking off with David until we reached the ocean, then disappear along the surf, catch the bus to Casablanca at first light and leave this endless scam behind us. The thoughts bounced around in my head – the entire timeline of the secret murder – and I drifted off to slumber only to awaken a few hours later to a very hungover but more coherent Sharif, with his ratty-ass fucking blue jean jacket.
"Youssef," he whispered softly. "Youssef, wake up. C’mon, we have to go. I’ll call a taxi and you and I will go into town and you can get dirham out of a machine."
"No, David and I will both go and we’ll leave for good," I said.
"No problem," he said. "But David stays here and you can bring back the money for my friend. You can pay him and then you can leave."
"No. We both go together and will not come back."
He took a deep, almost saddened, breath, flipped on the harsh overhead light, and walked over to sleeping David. He clapped his hands thunderously together right next to David’s head.
"Wake up!!" he bellowed.
They heckled us some more, tried to trick us into splitting up, but the does are now deer and the morning makes more sense. David thought on his feet and bargained with the two of them, saying he’d give them 400 of the U.S. dollars they saw tumbling from his belt. No more. Before Hassan could give it much thought, David stepped up, "Here, one, two, three, four. Like you say. So we’re square, right?"
Hassan stared down at the bills.
"Are we square?" David said again. "We are leaving."
A tense minute passed and Hassan stood up and shook both of our hands. "This is good," he said. He gave us hearty hugs, said "my brothers," and was gone. We saddled up our bags and followed Sharif outside. I peeked into the room of the family, all of them crammed together like that, with the sick patriarch resting stoically under the sheets. We said goodbye. The youngest child ran up to me and I gave him a full pack of gum and his face stretched with a secret smile before he dashed off to hide it.
At the road, Sharif waved down a taxi stuffed with old Berber farmers and it drove up the mist-choked Rif mountain pass. The taxi dropped off all the haggard men first, then wound back down to Assilah proper, downtown. Sharif gave us overbearing hugs and said, "My friends. I am so glad we met. I’ve got to go back to Tangiers to work. I’m very late. Goodbye."
He hailed a Grande Taxi and slid in and shut the door. It sped off with his hand waving out the window. Bleary-eyed, we watched it leave. It started to rain. There was a fight brewing between some locals on the other side of the street. An old woman screamed mercilessly.
"He took my shirt," said David, looking off.
"Huh?"
"When we were walking out of the village, he told me he was cold and asked me for an extra t-shirt, saying he’d give it back. He never did." He paused. "They even got the shirt off my back."
