Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See

by Juliann Garey

  As he puts me into a taxi headed for the airport, I press a hundred dollars into his palm and he makes a gesture of refusing it. “You have done enough,” he says. But we both know a hundred dollars will go a long way here, so when I stuff it in his pocket he doesn’t resist. “May God bless you,” he says instead.

  He stands there waving as I drive off. When he is out of sight, I slide the gold band off my ring finger and deposit it in the taxi’s ashtray. I have done enough.

  Nairobi is big, ugly, dusty, and above all, crime-ridden—making it the perfect and logical next step in my descent into hell. But hell comes in many shapes and colors, some very tempting. And so I choose the Norfolk, the oldest, most colonial hotel in Nairobi. More than likely built on the broken backs of black Africans, I think as I ascend the steps into its grand lobby, passing the ranks of uniformed bellboys. It’s hard to convince myself I am not on a soundstage of some Hollywood studio where some sweeping romantic period epic is shooting. Easier to believe that than to buy that all this could be real. The cool stone courtyards and shady gardens block out the dirt, the reality, the hostility of the street—of the real Nairobi.

  I arrive at dusk, settle in, and head immediately to the outdoor bar overlooking the spectacular gardens. I imagine ninety years ago, when the place first opened, you could probably see the beggars at the gates from here. Now there are twenty-foot-high shrubs strategically planted to keep out such unpleasantness.

  Though I am in the mood for something harder, I order a Tusker beer—a tribute to the brewery’s famous founder who was killed while hunting elephant. When in Nairobi, I think, raising my chilled glass to him. For most Westerners, Nairobi is a stopover on the way to or coming back from safari. But I don’t feel like moving. I certainly don’t feel up to chasing lions or elephants. Like Lord Tusker. So I stay in Nairobi. And watch as things begin to happen.

  I am becoming my own safari. My own hunt. Some days I am predator; some days I am prey. And then I begin to get confused. Because some days I am both. The space between inhale and exhale disappears. Time stops. I forget how to breathe. Just for a moment. But it’s happening more and more. So I have another beer. Tusker. And another. Tusker Tusker.

  I think I am growing them. Tusks. No one else has noticed. I shave them off every morning. Pressing the razor hard into my face where they are sprouting, making deep cuts, covering them with Band-Aids I have sent up from the front desk. So no one has noticed. Maybe if I switch to another beer. Avoid the elephants.

  The hotel people—which is to say, the people in the hotel—they are looking at me. The Band-Aids, the tusks, I don’t know. So I go out on the street. The street is loud. I go to the markets where black women in white skirts sit on mats in parking lots, weaving baskets and selling baskets. But I don’t want baskets. I want quiet.

  The day I stumble into Comtewa Stationers, a tiny antiquarian bookstore, I find what I am looking for. Metal utility shelves crammed with everything from military history to maps to mysticism, religion, archeology, local authors, and Western favorites like Sidney Sheldon and Danielle Steel create aisles so narrow it is impossible for one customer to pass another.

  I spend most of my time with the older hardcover editions—old enough to preclude me from attaching my own egocentric imprint to their publication dates. The more esoteric the better. It doesn’t matter that most of those books are written in a language I cannot read. I like to stand in the narrow aisles, pulling them from the shelves, smelling the ink and the dust. Something about the way the pages smell—ink, paper, bindings.

  Once I discover Comtewa, I am on a mission. I visit every bookshop in Nairobi. It doesn’t take long. There aren’t more than a handful and at least half of those carry crap catering to tourists—old dime-store paperbacks bought in American or European airports and discarded in local hotels, obviously purchased for a shilling or two by booksellers from the hotel maids and bellboys who find them in vacated rooms.

  A few shops, though, become my friends—Estriol, Prestige, the little shop without a name behind the Stanley Hotel. These small storefront bookstores provide hours of calm in the Nairobi storm. Because every day when I wake up, the clouds gather, a little darker each day, and I feel less and less equipped to do anything about them. To go anywhere. To make a change. To speak more than the occasional sentence. So I go to the bookstores.

  I do not want to speak and I do not want to be spoken to. I find it hurts my ears. My head. My skin. And people are quiet in bookstores. I like the anonymous, mute companionship of my fellow browsers.

  I am at Comtewa, my favorite bookstore, when the incident occurs. I can’t say I remember very much, only that I have been feeling increasingly restless and agitated. For days. Weeks? I have lost track of how long I have been here.

  Either things are moving too slow or I am in a panic to keep up. Sometimes I don’t know which; often the sensations seem to coexist. Everyone around me is in my way all the time. The bookstore clerk, a young man with long, graceful fingers whose pink fingernails stand out against his dark-brown skin, is having an endless conversation with a large-breasted woman who holds two dingy, worn books in her hands.

  I can’t understand what they are saying, but it is fairly obvious. She raises one book and then the other, weighing their respective merits and asking him endless questions. And he, knowing I’ve been standing there for-fucking-ever, not only patiently but enthusiastically continues to carry on this third-world literary salon.

  I really and truly don’t remember the rest. From what I understand, I verbalized my impatience and offered to buy both books for the lady. But not in those words. And apparently, in my frustration, I pushed over a bookcase. Or two. Apparently there was a sort of domino effect. The police came and I was arrested. That part I remember. I couldn’t think of much to say in my defense. So I resisted. And was quickly introduced to the policeman’s nightstick. A single efficient blow that brought me to my knees. The U.S. Embassy was called but there was only so much they could or would do. I was a tourist who had without provocation vandalized a local business and assaulted one of its customers, who, it turns out, happened to work for the Kenyan Ministry of Education. The books were first editions by beloved African poets.

  On the advice of the embassy’s legal department, I did what I could to make amends. I supplied the funds to renovate the bookstore, donated livestock to the district of Subukia, tried to convince the injured parties that my behavior was an anomaly. But I had the feeling I was lying.

  I decide to leave Nairobi and return to Kampala, vaguely remembering things were better there. Thinking I knew people there and they knew me. Not remembering who. Hoping familiar surroundings will restore a sense of equilibrium. But knowing I am probably wrong.

  After three weeks in Kampala I am becoming a superhero. Except I haven’t done anything heroic. Nor do I intend to. But recently I have started developing superpowers. Supersensitive smelling capabilities and ultrabright-light sight receptors. But my most super powerful sense is my souped-up hearing. I hear everything. All the time. The sound of bus exhaust. Ringing telephones and telephones that have not yet rung. The gears of the hotel’s elevators moving between floors and cockroach feet tap-dancing over bathtub porcelain and the scratch of waiters’ pens on their pads and all the music playing on all the Walkmans in every pedestrian’s headphones within a square mile of Me Central.

  All of it.

  All at once.

  And everywhere, always the growling, grinding, wheezing of all the air conditioners and ceiling fans in Kampala desperately, hopelessly, uselessly trying to take Africa down a degree or two.

  In the beginning, I was fascinated by my powers. And for a while I was obviously pretty fucking fascinating too. If you can judge that kind of thing by the ease with which genuinely excellent pussy seemed to fall from the sky and land on my dick with very little effort on my part. That was fun. While it lasted.

  But it didn’t.

  It never does.


  And now, it—all of it—is too much. Too hot. Too bright to hear. Too loud to see. And with no way to turn it down, there is no sleep, nothing to stop the onslaught.

  Now I am sitting at my favorite little round stone table in the lovely garden bar of my international hotel, surrounded by voices that, in their foreignness, all sound the same—shrill, irritating, grating. I want another vodka. Another ’nother vodka, I guess.

  Across the lawn, half a football field away, a hotel gardener wielding a power saw trims the towering, well-groomed wall of hedge that protects the paying guests from what’s out there.

  Buzzing. Buzzing. Buzz. Zing. Wave after wave of shimmering rainbow-colored vibrations fly off his magic Black & Decker wand. The vibrations roll toward me, breaking like giant waves, and I feel my chest tighten as I wonder how close they will get. Should I duck or take cover? I am relieved when they dissipate before becoming a serious threat. Crisis averted. But the uncomfortable tightness lingers. Need another vodka.

  I rub my hands over the smooth table. It is porous and miraculously cool. I lean over and lay my cheek down next to my hand, pressing my ear hard against the table, hoping to dim the buzzing. This table, I decide, is the only cool place in Africa. I let my eyes roam over the rest of the bar, covering as much territory as I can without actually moving any body parts. Smoking cigarettes. Smoked fish. Buzzing flies. Buzzing. Endless. Buzzing. And Pulsing. And Vibrating. Living. Alive. Banging down my door like the Big Bad Wolf. Driving down my intersecting, interchangeable super highway of fucked-up, misfiring, hydroplaning neural pathways. And there is nothing super about it.

  It is Just Fucking Irritating.

  I lay my empty glass down on the table next to my face and use my tongue to fish out an ice cube. Held prisoner between cheek and gum, it melts quickly. I slip my tongue through my lips and stretch it out flat like a paintbrush on the table. I lick up and down and around my fingers, tracing the outline of my hand. But I run out of saliva before I can complete the project.

  And frankly, I am disappointed that the table—the stone—does not have a more unique taste, something more intrinsic to its stone-ness. I sit up, fall back into the big wicker armchair, and take a deep breath—only to find my mouth filled with the sickly sweet aroma of gardenias budding but not yet in bloom. Want vodka.

  The woman at the table next to me bursts out in a high-pitched cackle and I dig my fingernails into my forehead to keep from throttling her.

  Yessssssssss. For a moment I am distracted by the pleasantness of the pain.

  I let my head fall back onto the tabletop and think of things I’d rather be doing. Running naked through heavily thorned shrubbery is the first thing that comes to mind. But it doesn’t have to be thorns. Almost anything sharp would work. Anything sharp enough to provide some kind of equally intense but opposite sensation to counter the effect of my supersenseless senses. I probably should have stayed upstairs in my room—away from things. And people. But I’ve been trying to carry on a normal life—despite my developing superpowers. And so far I don’t think anyone has noticed.

  But today feels different.

  And with each new addition to the already cluttered cacophony—spoon clattering onto slate floor, waiter chewing out busboy in Swahili—I know I am coming closer to the edge.

  “Sir? May I bring you anything else?”

  Without bothering to open my eyes, I pick up my empty glass and rattle the quickly melting cubes in the waiter’s direction.

  “Very good, sir.”

  A moment passes before I realize I still have my glass raised. I open my eyes and examine the hand wrapped around the tumbler—mine, I assume, since it is attached to my arm. But not exactly the hand I remember. It is puffier, meatier than any hand I remember having. I lay it flat on the table in front of me. I stare at the thick purple vein that rises like a mountain range out and over the top of my hand.

  The woman—that fucking woman laughs again. It is an assault. I am sure I can see my pulsating purple vein pick up the pace. I turn and glare at the witch but she is oblivious. Her companion—a fat, pasty turd with an impressively three-dimensional mole on her upper lip—leans in and whispers to her. German. They are German. Nazi German bitches. Pig-fucking Nazi bitches. The women drinking tea at the next table are responsible for the deaths of millions.

  A distant voice in my head tells me I should turn away. Because I’ve been known to act impulsively. And then regret it later. Although right now I can’t think of a single example of that. And anyway, this situation is entirely different. These Nazi pig fuckers are guilty of genocide. My homicidal rage is completely justified. I mentally bury the little voice under a pile of biochemical landfill and continue to stare at them, idly turning the hotel silver over in my hand and letting the heavy dull knife and fork clatter onto the table. Picking them up, letting them fall. Picking them up, letting them fall. It is gratuitously obnoxious. Irritating and annoying. At least I hope so. Why should I be the only one to suffer?

  The witch shouts something at me in Nazi. Which I neither speak nor understand. Then she spits—just as the waiter is crossing between our tables bearing my drink. The viscous glob lands on his black trouser leg.

  He is speechless. She is shocked, appalled, and, screaming at the waiter in German, points a gnarled red-tipped finger at me. Her turd companion is mortified and apologetic and jumps from the table to wipe at the bubbling spot on his pants with her linen napkin.

  I smile. I have willed it into being. I have another superpower.

  “Madam, please,” the waiter says, trying to shake the prostrate turd-woman off his ankle, “that is not necessary.”

  He puts my drink and a bowl of salted nuts down in front of me.

  “Will you be needing anything else, sir?”

  I have been pressing the heavy, three-tined fork against the bulbous purple vein on my hand, watching, fascinated at how its weight, pressed at just the right angle, forces the one vein to become two—forces the blood to flow otherwise. I poke one of the thick tines into the outside of my even thicker purple vein. It makes a benign indentation. Like poking the Pillsbury Doughboy. How far from the surface could the blood be, I wonder. It is purple enough to see. Purple and pulsing.

  “Sir?”

  “I’ll have the shrimp cocktail,” I answer without looking up.

  The cackling woman has left. Fled. But her cackle has stayed behind. An aural parasite, it has taken up residence in my chest. Like millions of tiny cackling wings all flapping inside me. I can feel them. Cackling, buzzing, building a hive in my chest. Bees. Buzzing. Inside. A giant, humming cancer filled with buzzing, stinging, cackling, crackling insects, angry and desperate to break through the cramped confines of my chest wall. When I put my hand over my sternum I can feel it getting bigger, strangling my heart every time I try to breathe.

  The waiter returns with four perfect shrimp—cleaned, peeled, and hung over the side of an ice-filled silver bowl at the center of which is a little dish of cocktail sauce. When he sets them down in front of me, I spin the plate around several times, check under the paper doily, and finally tear it apart, sifting through it all with my hands.

  “Sir?”

  “Where’s the damn fish fork?” I ask. I am furious. My hands are shaking and covered in cocktail sauce.

  “But sir, the shrimp have been peeled, they don’t require …” He stops talking and looks at me. Then, taking my linen napkin, he wipes my hands off—gently, carefully, completely. Cradling first one and then the other in his large, cool, dark hands, he takes his time. As if this were a normal part of his job. Like preparing Caesar salad tableside.

  I should be angry. But I’m not. I should feel embarrassment and humiliation. But I don’t. I want to cry. But I can’t.

  When my hands are clean, he makes the dirty napkin disappear behind his back.

  “Fish fork. Very good, sir. Right away.”

  The moment he leaves, the bees are back. Buzzing. I breathe in and feel their tin
y feet in my bronchi. Buzz. Wings beating in my alveoli. Flutterbuzz. He is back in a minute. He sets the fish fork on a clean napkin. Then he nudges my vodka toward the far end of the table and puts a very tall iced tea that I did not order in front of me.

  “Just brewed,” he says. “Very refreshing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Not at all, sir.”

  Flutterflutterzzzzzzzbuzzzzzz. I have to do something to make it stop. I have to feel something simple. This—flutterflutterflutterbuzzzzz—is too complicated. Too confusing. I want to feel something about which there can be no argument or debate. Something about which everything will be known. Here. Now. Something that will make all the rest stop.

  There is an exquisite and audible pop when the hooked tip of the center tine of the fish fork punctures the fat purple vein. I have enjoyed every delicious second leading up to the final breaching of inner and outer—the sharp poke of the tiny dagger pushing, pushing, pushing. But now that it’s in and the blood is leaking—slowly at first, then faster—the sharpness of the pain has receded to a dull ache. And I am aware once again of the fucking bees. The buzzing that is everywhere around me, inside me, all the time, all at once. I want it gone. I pull the single tine out of my vein but have to tug a little when the hooked edge gets stuck inside. The nearly translucent skin tears easily and the gush that follows brings a windfall of unexpected sweet relief.

  It is good. It is a beginning. But it is not enough. So I lay my left arm flat on the table, palm facing upward, and squeeze my fist open and closed. Open and closed. Watch and wait. I sigh, relieved, as my hot, swollen veins finally rise to the surface—the fattest, purplest ones just at the inside of my elbow. So that is where I plunge the fork.

  Yesssssssssssssssssss.

  For a moment the pain is blinding. Wonderfully, beautifully blinding. I feel the smile spread across my face as my brain scrambles to readjust and rewire its sensory priorities. This pain is precise and delicious and totally satisfying. It is exactly what I have been craving.