Demon Box

He snatched the Polaroid print away before I could coat it. Its impact on him was incredible. As he studied his developing image on the little square of paper, we could actually see his face begin to change and shift. He set his jaw, then his shoulders. He worked his features until they presented once again the countenance of a very cool cat, watch out. His breathing slowed. His color returned. When he had it all together, as they say, be damned if the fucker didn’t demand an extra five pounds!

Another huge hassle. Thud laughed scornfully at our deal with Uncle Marag. Who is Marag? Where is he, this Marag, with the so-called car’s five pounds promised, eh? Why isn’t this Marag here to complete the transaction? Okay, okay, Jack sighs and hands over the five. No no, that was just the usual fare! (Thud glanced again at his photograph for reassurance; yep, he was still there.) Another five was what he was talking about, for all the time we made him wait. I was getting tired of it. I said okay, here’s the extra five. But I get the picture back.

He gasped.

Hadn’t that been the deal? I gave you picture; you gave us nice ride and no extra? He blinked, looking around. He wasn’t alone. Some of the other cabbies and hustlers had ambled over to see what was happening. They were all grinning. It was very clear what was happening. Thud was cornered.

To save face he had to give face up.

He snatched the bill from me and slapped the photo down on the street (face up) and roared off in his taxi, shoulders back, stomach sucked in, head held high. Almost made you proud of him.

Later that night, however, the power of the picture must have run down. He came knocking on my cabana door with one of those little metal outfits you throw away when your pack of Polaroids is empty. A little flimsy black box. He’d found it under the seat where I’d kicked it, my bag already full to the brim with the print peelings and all that other Polaroid waste.

He grinned triumphantly, holding the little box high in the air.

He would trade, he carefully explained, this obviously valuable photographic attachment for the picture, which could be of no possible value to me. He stood, grinning and waiting. How could I explain to him that I had never coated his picture and that the prints from these special positive-negative Polaroid films fade blank in minutes without that coating goop? Besides, that other deal had gone down. So I told him no dice; he could keep the valuable photographic attachment, I’d keep the picture, albeit nonexistent.

“No dice?” he cried. “No dice is no trade?”

“No trade is what no dice is. No picture. No deal.”

He was dumbfounded. He stared at me with a new respect; here was someone as bullheaded as he was. He cursed and threatened me for a while, in Arabic and English and three or four other fractional languages, brandishing a black metal box that was as empty as his threats.

When he finally stalked off, bewildered and pissed, I made a mental note to henceforth check both ways very carefully before crossing any busy Egyptian thoroughfares.

Back from supper I finish washing my negatives in the little gallon bucket of chemicals you have to carry with this kind of Polaroid film. A hassle and a nuisance.

I bought this complicated process because of all the photogs over the years who have sought to snare my likeness—affronting my view, plaguing my poise, making me stumble where I had walked sure before, always promising, “I know it’s a bit of a bother but I’ll send you prints!—only to disappear into their darkrooms never to be seen again.

I thought this process would be more equitable; the subjects could have their print, I’d have the negative. But piss on it. It’s just too much hassle.

V: Within the Stone Heart

For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.

Jesus

When you got nothin’ to say, my Great-uncle Dicker advised me once in a kind of Arkie ode to optimism, go ahead and say it.

“Because it’s like having nothin’ to serve for supper but say a pot of water and some salt; could be after you get the water boiling and salted, some colored cook on a potato wagon might aimlessly run over one o’ yer prize hens… ob–ligate herself to you.”

Advice I have followed, as a potboiler of aimless words, to many a last-minute successful stew.

“How-and-ever,” Uncle Dicker must have amended, “don’t invite a bunch over to take supper on the basis of this could-be. Help is just too blessed unree-lie–abul!” An amendment I must have forgotten, because here I am trying to write in Egypt, with a table full of invited readers, bellies growling, salty pots steaming, but no sign of any last-minute Jemima or her potatoes.