You Shall Know Our Velocity

A man, squeezed into an undersized sportcoat, caught pace with us and assured us he saw us in the hotel and that he wanted to ww-wel-w-wel-elcome us to Casablanca did we l-l-li-like it. A hustler with a stutter.

We told him we liked Casablanca, but not some of the people. Some of the people, said Hand, were kind of pushy. The man agreed readily and kept with us.

Where were we g-g-g-oing? he wanted to know. I had never heard someone stutter in another language, much less stutter in his second language. It was kind of great.

To eat, we answered.

"G-g-go to disco later?" he asked.

"No thanks."

"You like the disco! Very good the disco!"

"Thanks though."

His welcome had worn out. He wasn't a man anymore; he was an insect. Why is he no longer human? He's dehumanized us, so we by turns do the same. He has no choice but to see you as prey.

– You have a choice, stuttering man.

– I do not.

– Then we have a choice.

He changed tactics.

"You you have to look out around here," he said, "boys will come and grab from your pockets," he said, and while he said this, he pulled on Hand's pockets in a way u

We stopped at shop windows to lose him, but every time we stopped, he did too, loitering ten or so feet away, eating his cuticles while waiting for us to start again.

After eight blocks finally he crossed the street, though kept up with us from there, gri

A carfull of teenagers passed us yelling something lewd about the French; they thought we were French, which we didn't know how to take. We passed empty Chinese restaurants and more cafes full of men and their coffee and tweed and soccer and smoke.

We ate in a diner with a door open to the street and a TV yelling the game. Morocco vs. Egypt.

"Jesus," said Hand. "No wonder."

After the French comment, we began wondering about tensions between Moroccans and Europeans. Maybe it was bad, maybe we were hated, accounting for how few white tourists were in the city; maybe we'd be kidnapped and killed -

We pretended that people cared we were in the diner, but they did not. We ate some kind of chicken and rice dish we guessed at on the menu, which was printed in Arabic. The city, here, looked like Chicago's North Side, in the oblique angles of the intersecting streets, the neighborhood bars, the homogeneity, both comforting and discomfiting. It was cool, about fifty degrees, and the food was good. We'd forgotten to eat all day and here we were. It was my first meal without my left back second molar and the vacancy was chasmic and wet and thrilling. Across the aisle from us, two boys, brothers of ten and twelve, had their mouths open, tongues bobbing, showing each other their half-chewed food.

There is no point to stucco. I've done a little bit of it in my job, applying the goop to a bathroom or two and once in a tall hall with a ceiling of apple-ci

Ten blocks away we passed through a door of beads and into the darkest of bars, long and narrow, full of men and more tweed, more soccer – a kind of Moroccan sports pub. We ordered beers, small and in green bottles. Everyone was drinking from the small green bottles.

We stood and glanced at the jukebox; everything in Arabic.

"Bonjour," said a man at a table by my waist.

I said bonjour. Next to him were nine empty green bottles, neatly arranged in two rows. I looked around and this was custom – the bottles drunk were kept and arranged, as proof.

"You are not French," he said.

"No," I said.

"American," Hand said.

"Ah, AmeriCAHN," he said, gri

Hand clapped and the man smiled.

"And Pink Floyd! I like! We du