saying?” He grinned in a manic way, showing me his perfect teeth. With his gingery hair worn in a ponytail he looked more like a Colorado ski bum than a fugitive would-be terrorist. I didn’t know what I looked like anymore. Actually, I’ve never known. I used to tell people that on the FBI wanted poster I looked like a Mexican hooker, but I wasn’t really sure and in fact was only asking for an opinion.
“I never thought you were dangerous, Zack.”
“Man, you are cold. Just like with Carol, man.” He shivered and abruptly stood. “I’m outa here. I’ll see you back at the apartment later, maybe,” he said and strode off.
I’d hurt his feelings and didn’t care, and he knew it. And he was right: from his point of view, Africa hadn’t warmed me up. Though we shared the apartment, we kept to our separate bedrooms and were rarely there at the same time anyhow, never ate together, and didn’t socialize with the same people. Actually, I socialized with no one, and he hung out with everyone. I liked the city of Accra, though. The huge, bustling city sprawled inland from the sea for miles and was such a glorious and inviting contrast to the gray, old mill towns I’d left behind—those recently abandoned, rust-belt cities like New Bedford and before that Cleveland, which had borne me down almost without my knowing it—that I found Accra irresistible. It was hot, equatorially hot, but thanks to the steady breeze off the Atlantic not uncomfortably humid, and as long as you kept out of the direct sun, it felt ideal—the climate to which human anatomy, after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, was perfectly adapted. And I liked the Ghanaian people. They were excitable, loud, confident, and in your face, but in an engaging and good-humored way, waving hands, gesticulating, bending, bowing, and spinning as they talked, haggled, hassled, gossiped, and sang. Like the people, the city itself competed tirelessly for your attention and ear with its unbroken din of car horns and buses and trucks without mufflers, radios blasting from windows and open storefronts and hawkers hawking, babies crying, jackhammers pounding. Everywhere you looked Accra worked to catch and hold your eye with bright, busy color—the tie-dyed and beautifully woven wraps on the women and their elaborately coiled, braided, and beaded hairstyles, glossy black, hatlike structures as precarious as wedding cakes; the Chinese bicycles repainted in gaudy colors; the jammed minivans called tro-tros , the dazzling heaps of fruits and vegetables in the Makola market; and the barbershop signs with crude, hand-painted portraits of black men wearing spiffy Detroit-style haircuts called “747 Wave” and “Barracuda Zip” and “Concord Up.” I liked the street food, especially keli-weli —savory little chunks of plantain fried in palm oil and flavored with ginger and hot peppers and served on a banana leaf—and even grew fond of the culinary leftovers from colonial days, a cup of hot Milo in the morning and for lunch at the office a thick sandwich of Laughing Cow cheese and the spongy white bread that Zack, just to get on my nerves, liked to call bimbo bread.
Never much of a cook, evenings I dined alone and mostly in little hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the neighborhood, where I favored the chopped-spinach dish called kontumbre and fish and rice jollof and the thick, darkly spiced stews. And I liked smoking the very strong Ghanaian marijuana. It was called bingo and sometimes wee , sold by a dealer named Bush Doctor, who hung out by the pool at the Golden Tulip. Zack bought it by the pound and, whenever he motored off to the backcountry on one of his art-buying jaunts, he carried enough with him to fill a tobacco pouch, leaving the rest carelessly behind at the apartment in a quart jam jar. Those nights when he was away, I’d dip into his jar, roll myself a pencil-size joint with tissue paper stripped off the foil liner of a cigarette pack,
“I never thought you were dangerous, Zack.”
“Man, you are cold. Just like with Carol, man.” He shivered and abruptly stood. “I’m outa here. I’ll see you back at the apartment later, maybe,” he said and strode off.
I’d hurt his feelings and didn’t care, and he knew it. And he was right: from his point of view, Africa hadn’t warmed me up. Though we shared the apartment, we kept to our separate bedrooms and were rarely there at the same time anyhow, never ate together, and didn’t socialize with the same people. Actually, I socialized with no one, and he hung out with everyone. I liked the city of Accra, though. The huge, bustling city sprawled inland from the sea for miles and was such a glorious and inviting contrast to the gray, old mill towns I’d left behind—those recently abandoned, rust-belt cities like New Bedford and before that Cleveland, which had borne me down almost without my knowing it—that I found Accra irresistible. It was hot, equatorially hot, but thanks to the steady breeze off the Atlantic not uncomfortably humid, and as long as you kept out of the direct sun, it felt ideal—the climate to which human anatomy, after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, was perfectly adapted. And I liked the Ghanaian people. They were excitable, loud, confident, and in your face, but in an engaging and good-humored way, waving hands, gesticulating, bending, bowing, and spinning as they talked, haggled, hassled, gossiped, and sang. Like the people, the city itself competed tirelessly for your attention and ear with its unbroken din of car horns and buses and trucks without mufflers, radios blasting from windows and open storefronts and hawkers hawking, babies crying, jackhammers pounding. Everywhere you looked Accra worked to catch and hold your eye with bright, busy color—the tie-dyed and beautifully woven wraps on the women and their elaborately coiled, braided, and beaded hairstyles, glossy black, hatlike structures as precarious as wedding cakes; the Chinese bicycles repainted in gaudy colors; the jammed minivans called tro-tros , the dazzling heaps of fruits and vegetables in the Makola market; and the barbershop signs with crude, hand-painted portraits of black men wearing spiffy Detroit-style haircuts called “747 Wave” and “Barracuda Zip” and “Concord Up.” I liked the street food, especially keli-weli —savory little chunks of plantain fried in palm oil and flavored with ginger and hot peppers and served on a banana leaf—and even grew fond of the culinary leftovers from colonial days, a cup of hot Milo in the morning and for lunch at the office a thick sandwich of Laughing Cow cheese and the spongy white bread that Zack, just to get on my nerves, liked to call bimbo bread.
Never much of a cook, evenings I dined alone and mostly in little hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the neighborhood, where I favored the chopped-spinach dish called kontumbre and fish and rice jollof and the thick, darkly spiced stews. And I liked smoking the very strong Ghanaian marijuana. It was called bingo and sometimes wee , sold by a dealer named Bush Doctor, who hung out by the pool at the Golden Tulip. Zack bought it by the pound and, whenever he motored off to the backcountry on one of his art-buying jaunts, he carried enough with him to fill a tobacco pouch, leaving the rest carelessly behind at the apartment in a quart jam jar. Those nights when he was away, I’d dip into his jar, roll myself a pencil-size joint with tissue paper stripped off the foil liner of a cigarette pack,
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