The Tooth Fairy: Parents, Lovers, and Other Wayward Deities (A Memoir) by Clifford Chase Page B
Authors: Clifford Chase
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escapade: I agreed to go
to the duty-free shop to purchase two bottles of liquor for Abdul.
The circuitous journey of that day must have rhymed with my perplexity over John, since that’s the only way I can account
for my continuing fascination with the incident.
Like my mother, I have a special talent for feeling cheated and deceived, whether of goods, services, or affection.
Until then John and I had walked everywhere with Abdul and Ali, but now as we rode in a cab with Abdul around a huge, insanely
busy traffic circle, John glanced at me uneasily, and I realized with a bolt of dread that we had no idea where Abdul had
asked the driver to take us or what might happen when we got there.
It wasn’t a comforting portent that Ali, the gentler of the two, had decided not to join us on this errand.
But soon enough the taxi came to a stop in front of an ordinary-looking building, and Abdul led us upstairs to a store stacked
to the ceiling with boxes; he spoke to one of the men behind the glass counter, and we were ushered into a side room to fill
out the paperwork.
Something about the way the head-scarfed girl looked at me, as she made notations on my passport, caused me to ask just what
I was signing up for.
“Twelve bottles whiskey,” she answered, “twelve bottles vodka, two boombox—”
“No, no, no!” I said, with outsize indignation, and with equal flourish she tore the forms in two before my eyes.
Abdul had remained chatting with the men at the counter, so John and I tore out of there and hopped in a taxi, hoping Abdul
hadn’t seen us.
I knew from the guidebook that foreigners were restricted to four bottles of liquor each, and I could only guess what sort
of fine or duty I’d have to pay at the airport—not to mention the boomboxes; I also knew that such things could be sold for
a huge profit on the black market, and I feared being implicated in the crime.
As it happened, the taxi had to circle back past the duty-free store, where of course Abdul waved us to a halt.
“I come with you,” he said, trying to open the door.
“No!” John shouted.
“
Fuck
you!” he yelled back. “I waste all my time on you.”
Intense shame as John and I drove off—for running away from Abdul; for being fooled by him; for denying him his payoff.
Indeed, from a political standpoint (as well as a literary one), my sympathy tended toward the young unemployed Egyptianrather than the two Western tourists—or did I identify with Abdul for other reasons?
That day I never had a minute to worry over my feelings toward John.
Back at the hotel we talked about the encounter late into the night, trying to understand (for instance) whether I was signing
up to actually pay for all that merchandise, or merely lending my foreign passport to the transaction; and who would resell
the items, Abdul or one of the guys in the store?
We also wondered how we’d missed various warning signs that, back in New York, would have been perfectly obvious, or what
we could have done differently to avoid the unpleasant scene in the taxi.
Perhaps most puzzling was that Abdul appeared genuinely hurt and betrayed by our getaway.
It occurs to me now that he must have felt humiliated in front of the store clerks.
At last John said, sighing, “He wasn’t going to be happy no matter what we offered him. The whole thing was bound to end in
tears.”
John dislikes unpleasantness nearly as much as I do.
3
D USTY CRUMBLING BUILDINGS in hazy morning light.
Huge wooden trays of fresh tan pita carried on bicycles through the streets.
I drank the fruit juice despite the ice, even though the guidebook had warned us not to; John frowned.
The old telephones in wooden stalls took only older Egyptian coins, difficult to obtain since they were no longer in general
circulation, nor did my phone card work, so we failed at calling Gabby back in Israel.
The magical nature of the place, added to our desire to see it as
to the duty-free shop to purchase two bottles of liquor for Abdul.
The circuitous journey of that day must have rhymed with my perplexity over John, since that’s the only way I can account
for my continuing fascination with the incident.
Like my mother, I have a special talent for feeling cheated and deceived, whether of goods, services, or affection.
Until then John and I had walked everywhere with Abdul and Ali, but now as we rode in a cab with Abdul around a huge, insanely
busy traffic circle, John glanced at me uneasily, and I realized with a bolt of dread that we had no idea where Abdul had
asked the driver to take us or what might happen when we got there.
It wasn’t a comforting portent that Ali, the gentler of the two, had decided not to join us on this errand.
But soon enough the taxi came to a stop in front of an ordinary-looking building, and Abdul led us upstairs to a store stacked
to the ceiling with boxes; he spoke to one of the men behind the glass counter, and we were ushered into a side room to fill
out the paperwork.
Something about the way the head-scarfed girl looked at me, as she made notations on my passport, caused me to ask just what
I was signing up for.
“Twelve bottles whiskey,” she answered, “twelve bottles vodka, two boombox—”
“No, no, no!” I said, with outsize indignation, and with equal flourish she tore the forms in two before my eyes.
Abdul had remained chatting with the men at the counter, so John and I tore out of there and hopped in a taxi, hoping Abdul
hadn’t seen us.
I knew from the guidebook that foreigners were restricted to four bottles of liquor each, and I could only guess what sort
of fine or duty I’d have to pay at the airport—not to mention the boomboxes; I also knew that such things could be sold for
a huge profit on the black market, and I feared being implicated in the crime.
As it happened, the taxi had to circle back past the duty-free store, where of course Abdul waved us to a halt.
“I come with you,” he said, trying to open the door.
“No!” John shouted.
“
Fuck
you!” he yelled back. “I waste all my time on you.”
Intense shame as John and I drove off—for running away from Abdul; for being fooled by him; for denying him his payoff.
Indeed, from a political standpoint (as well as a literary one), my sympathy tended toward the young unemployed Egyptianrather than the two Western tourists—or did I identify with Abdul for other reasons?
That day I never had a minute to worry over my feelings toward John.
Back at the hotel we talked about the encounter late into the night, trying to understand (for instance) whether I was signing
up to actually pay for all that merchandise, or merely lending my foreign passport to the transaction; and who would resell
the items, Abdul or one of the guys in the store?
We also wondered how we’d missed various warning signs that, back in New York, would have been perfectly obvious, or what
we could have done differently to avoid the unpleasant scene in the taxi.
Perhaps most puzzling was that Abdul appeared genuinely hurt and betrayed by our getaway.
It occurs to me now that he must have felt humiliated in front of the store clerks.
At last John said, sighing, “He wasn’t going to be happy no matter what we offered him. The whole thing was bound to end in
tears.”
John dislikes unpleasantness nearly as much as I do.
3
D USTY CRUMBLING BUILDINGS in hazy morning light.
Huge wooden trays of fresh tan pita carried on bicycles through the streets.
I drank the fruit juice despite the ice, even though the guidebook had warned us not to; John frowned.
The old telephones in wooden stalls took only older Egyptian coins, difficult to obtain since they were no longer in general
circulation, nor did my phone card work, so we failed at calling Gabby back in Israel.
The magical nature of the place, added to our desire to see it as
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