You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers Page B

were too sad. Too full of sorrow. When I held her she sighed, and her sighs were weary, were groaning and exhausted, the sigh of an old person who'd seen everything and couldn't believe she was now being held, at the end of a journey she could never describe. The sighs were withering, were mood-killing, and finally I complained about Charlotte's sighs, to no avail. She'd responded with another sigh and that, I know now, was the end of the end.
                I was a fool. She was full of soul and now I was in this place, and the women here assumed I needed them.
                "Let's go," said Hand. "This is too sad."
                We moved for the door. A huge woman with enormous fingernails, not just long but wide, was tugging on me. I was flattered by the attention but it was unclear what she wanted. Another woman, her friend, smaller and with red-ringed eyes, patted my crotch like you would the head of a muzzled dog. Hand was ready, close to the door.
                But I wanted to unload the cash on the Sierra Leonians. They were harmless and hopeful next to the rest of these women. I slipped past the clawed woman and to the bathroom -- just a hole in the floor in a room like a closet -- to secretly retrieve the bills, wrapped around my ankle like a manacle. The wad stifled within my closed fist, I walked across the dancefloor and found the two young women sitting on a watcher's ledge, bored, and said "Sorry" to them while stuffing the bills in the older one's hand. She didn't even look at the wad; she felt it but kept her eyes on mine. It was, I realized in a shot, the first time any of these women had really looked at me. I jogged across the dancefloor, getting a running start before the throng of grabbing women at the bar.
                Raymond was outside. The street was crowded and the bouncers said goodnight -- that was nice, I thought -- and we waited in the taxi in the dark. Hand was not with us. "Sven's inside," Raymond explained.
                Hand emerged with the Sierra Leonian sisters kissing him on the cheeks and rubbing his chest -- he'd taken credit for my gift -- and he left them on the steps. He crossed the street and strode to the cab smiling grandly. He opened the door and got in with me and tried to close it but jesus -- a body, again! -- a body stopped the door from closing, prevented us from moving. It was my huge clawing prostitute. She had seen me give the money to the Sierra Leonians and wanted her share. She was enormous. I tried pushing her back but she was strong, at least as heavy as me, and was halfway in the car, preventing us from leaving or even closing the door. Her hand was out and she was talking quickly, in French. Then English: "Give me I see you! Give me I see you!"
                I found a 50 dirham note and threw it to her. It fell to the street. She picked it up and I closed the door, narrowly missing her head. She turned around quickly and walked back into the bar, stuffing it in her pants as we drove away.

                We were exhausted and home by one. In the cool black lobby we waited with Raymond for the elevator, watching the steel doors.
                "So where to next?" he asked. "Tomorrow."
                "Not sure yet," Hand said. "You?"
                "I go to Portugal, with my friend. A vacation after his race. Then back home."
                "You think he'll win?" I asked.
                "Win? Not a chance. But that's not the point."
                I thought it was the point. "Why not?" I asked.
                "The point is to offer yourself to death and see if you're chosen."
                Hand turned toward him.
                "He wants to make sure God wants him to live. So he spends a lot of time asking. He brings himself close to the edge and he feels God's breath on his back. If God wants to take him,