The Night Counter

by Alia Yunis

  “You look familiar,” the woman said, her voice a surprisingly demure contrast to her heavy makeup. “Were you at the convention in Richmond?”

  “Nope,” Bassam replied.

  “My name is Candy,” she said. “What’s yours?”

  He couldn’t offer to buy her a fucking drink. It would lead to marriage. It always did.

  “Tell her you don’t have a name and walk away,” Sam #2 whispered, magically there for him. “Amigo, there’s good money to be made tonight. I’m taking my half now. I’ve told the others to come get you when they’re ready.”

  He slapped Bassam on the back—extra hard—and left.

  “What’d your friend say?” this Candy asked.

  “What would you like to drink?” Bassam replied.

  “I like green apple martinis,” she said. A hip drink—five years ago. But not bad for someone who probably had been a prom queen runner-up two and half decades ago.

  “I’ll get you one,” he said, smiling, “but then, honey, I’m going to have to skedaddle back to work.”

  When Bassam came back with her drink, Candy looked a little hurt, as if his whole work thing were an excuse. But it was honest, which was more than most of what was said in this town.

  “Here’s my card, if you want to give me a call. The convention finale isn’t for another three days,” Candy told him. Her card said she was a masseuse. “I’ve got a number coming up: the Dance of the Seven Veils. Maybe you could stay and watch. My belly-dancing name is Fatima.”

  As she pronounced his mother’s name the American way, with the stress on the second syllable instead of the first, Bassam knew it was no longer possible for this woman, masseuse or not, to give him a hard-on. He would not marry her.

  “Girls are still determined to save you,” a cheery voice said as Candy left to shimmy with the other women from her North Carolina troupe. Bassam turned to face Lena. His only younger sister was right on the cusp of turning forty but with a face so babyish that she could still wear pigtails if she wanted. Not that she would want to. Fuck, Bassam could see that she still had pimples, and she didn’t do anything to hide them. She lived among the pretensions of Manhattan’s elite, surrounded by reasonably convincing cosmetic surgery, and she didn’t even put on any fucking lip gloss. It was like she had given up on love or sex—or whatever the fuck people called it—before she’d even tried it.

  “What are you doing here?” Bassam said, enveloping her in hug that should have been a little more enthusiastic.

  “I heard there was a belly-dance convention,” she said, shrugging.

  She was swaying her hips to the music now. She would be horrified if she realized that she was doing that, and so Bassam didn’t tell her.

  “I meant what are you doing in Vegas?”

  “NATPE,” she said. “It’s a television industry convention.”

  “I drove a bunch of them around today,” he remembered.

  “Lucky you,” she said.

  “They were fuckin’ assholes,” he replied.

  “That’s why I told them I couldn’t go with them to Cirque du Soleil tonight.” Lena smiled. “I told them I had to see my brother.”

  “You should have told me you were coming,” Bassam said.

  “I left a message with Candy at the bar a week ago.”

  Yes, yes, you did, he told her silently. “Candy can be a blond ditz,” he said aloud. “She must have stuck the message in her fucking hairdo and lost it.”

  “How come you have your name tag on?” Lena asked. “I thought you worked the day shift.”

  She sniffed loudly. Bassam knew that she couldn’t tell if the alcohol smell was from him or from the drinks in the other cabbies’ hands. He didn’t lean in any closer to help. He was tired of having to prove himself to the worriers, which he knew from AA was completely selfish. But he wanted his sisters to believe for themselves that he was sober.

  “I can make extra money doing two shifts,” he answered, sounding uncharacteristically ambitious. “How’s your job?”

  “I love it,” Lena lied.

  Lena was successful despite herself. With her knack for numbers, she had soared in finance, with the network moving her up, always as an example of female promotion. So timid, she wasn’t the natural choice. However, the more natural choices had been more aggressive in everything, including getting husbands and having children, which inadvertently put them out of the running.

  And she was a good sister. Even though she had never even taken a puff of Millie’s Virginia Slims, she had never given him away to their parents. When Fatima had identified the smell of pot in the house as mold, she had made Lena spend most of 1976 cleaning under cabinets and shelves for hours, scouring for the source. Meanwhile, Bassam would leave the house to continue his high at the park, telling Fatima that he was rehearsing his clarinet solo with the junior high school marching band for the bicentennial fireworks celebration.

  “Two hundred years,” Fatima had scoffed as he hummed John Philip Sousa music while walking out the door. “We have vendettas in Lebanon twice as old as that.”

  Lena stuck out her tongue at Bassam as he left, which made Amir, toddling behind her, giggle. But as much as she had fought with him about the pot when it was just the two of them, she did not tell Fatima that the school didn’t have a marching band anymore. She hadn’t wanted to add to the sadness in the house.

  She was laughing as Candy and her troupe twirled blanket-size silk scarves around their heads.

  “It looks like a fucking sheikh’s harem rebelling,” Bassam joked.

  Lena began chuckling, which involved some snorting. Still, her beauty lay in how easy it was to make her laugh. They had to leave the room as women in reinforced rhinestone bras turned to look at them.

  “We’re mean,” Lena said, finally getting control of herself.

  “Oh, come on, you’re ten times better,” Bassam told her. “Hell, I am.”

  He swiveled his hips in a pivot, wanting to hear her chuckle more.

  “No, I’m about as ridiculous as them,” she concluded. “But I know I’m not sexy. They don’t.”

  “You could have any guy you wanted,” Bassam told her.

  “That’s pretty lame for a pep talk.” She held up her hand, just as Fatima always did. “It’s okay. I’ve done okay in other areas. We each have our strengths.”

  Bassam had very few strengths. “Whatever happened to … ah … what’s his name?” he asked. “The personal trainer.”

  “The guy I went out with for five years? That what’s his name?” said Lena, trying to make light of a man who had cheated on her as often as the opportunity arose.

  “He wasn’t a drunk, was he?” Bassam said.

  She shook her head. “Men without paddles,” she mumbled.

  “What?” Bassam repeated.

  “Men without paddles. It’s something I heard my assistant Lucienne say the other day,” Lena explained. “Men who just float aimlessly from spot to spot forever, like most of the men in New York. Like Tony. That was his name. Like—”

  “Like me,” Bassam finished for her.

  Bassam watched reruns of Sex and the City sometimes when Candy had it on in the bar. Lena needed to get out of Manhattan. It was too bad she was successful there. It would be hard to leave success, he imagined. He wanted to tell her that in any other city men would appreciate her, but those were not comfortable things for a failed brother to tell a smart sister.

  But maybe a sober brother could do more for her. He was that now. What would a sober brother do for his little sister? Then it came to him.

  “You should come visit more often,” he said. He was going to find her someone. Yes, that was what he, as a sober man, would do. He would not rest until he did. After all, it was in the blood. Fatima always said his great-grandmother was some amazing matchmaker in Lebanon, and his father had found Miriam a husband.

  Sam #17 tapped Bassam on the shoulder. Standing behind him were four red-eyed, weaving Sa
udis.

  “Here’s your driver,” Sam #17 said to the Saudis.

  “I’ll bring the car around,” Bassam told them. “Where is it you gentlemen would like to go?”

  “The Bunny Ranch,” one slurred.

  “The Moonlight Bunny Ranch,” another corrected.

  “It’s near Reno,” Bassam said. “You want to go all the way to Reno?”

  “Yes, the Moonlight Bunny Ranch,” they said, nodding.

  Bassam bowed as he, his sister, and Sam #17 watched the Saudis totter outside. “Why defy your stereotype when you can afford not to?” he said.

  “Gross,” Lena mumbled.

  Sam #17 looked at her with appreciation. “Finally I see you with a nice girl,” he whispered to Bassam.

  “Dude, this is my sister,” Bassam told him. “Lena.”

  “Bint Arab, an Arab girl.” Sam #17 bowed with flourish. “I am Wissam. Ahlan wa sahlan, welcome, welcome, most welcome.”

  Lena shuffled her feet, uncomfortable around friendly men. Bassam thought it was too bad that Sam #17 was married. And no longer a doctor.

  Sam #17 motioned to Bassam that they should get going.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” Lena said.

  “How are you going to get back to your hotel?” Bassam asked. He wanted to give her a ride but didn’t want her to be in his car with this evening’s customers.

  “I’ll take a cab,” Lena said. “Maybe I’ll go back and watch the dancing for a little while longer.”

  “Why take a cab when your brother drives a limo? I’ll send someone over to get you in about an hour,” he said. “Just meet him outside.”

  “I don’t want to get you in trouble,” she said, as though his job were important.

  “I won’t tell the driver that you’re my sister, so you won’t have to make small talk with him,” he promised. “I’ll just say you’re a regular that I can’t pick up tonight.”

  He hugged her goodbye, this time tightly. He knew she would stand in place until he drove out of sight.

  “So is your sister married?” Sam #17 asked Bassam as they walked to their respective limos. The first question asked of a bint Arab. Bassam shook his head, surprised at how sad that made him.

  “I’m going to find her someone,” Sam #17 vowed. “A nice Arab guy. Or a good Muslim.”

  “That sounds like a fucking good plan, affendi,” Bassam said, and gave Sam #17 a high five and got into his Town Car. The four Saudis were coming down from their dancing and drinking.

  “Sir,” said a Saudi. “Do you think it is better that we still tell the women at the ranch that we are Indian maharajahs?”

  “Are there still maharajahs in India?” Bassam asked. He wondered exactly what he had learned at Harvard. Bassam offered the Saudis cigarettes and then took one himself.

  “Italian is probably your safest choice,” Bassam shrugged. “Be Italian.”

  “Inshallah,” they said, and after finishing their cigarettes were soon snoring.

  Good. Bassam enjoyed driving in silence. He lit one of the Saudis’ cigarettes and turned on Lucky 98 FM and hummed to classic rock that had seemed so much more meaningful when he was a high high schooler. He drove along the Strip past a troupe of freaky-ass clowns, a Swiss Heritage Brotherhood gathering with lederhosen on, and a posse of giddy senior citizen women in matching red hats followed by their less giddy gray husbands. He turned his head to look back at a group of hotties in tight shorts and cowboy hats. One girl flashed him a grin, but before he could grin back, another hottie gesticulated and pointed ahead, and he turned back around just in time to avoid slamming into the car in front of him. The Saudis woke up with several groans, jolted by his sudden braking, but they fell asleep again quickly, except for one.

  “Do you have any hip-hop music?” the Saudi asked.

  “I’m not so hip, and I can’t remember the last time I had any hop,” Bassam replied. The guy was much younger than Bassam originally had thought. “You should sleep. It’s about another ten hours and ten minutes until we get there.”

  “Ah, so you go often,” the Saudi said.

  “Everyone thinks the ranch is in Vegas, so they fly here instead of Reno,” he said.

  This was the tenth time Bassam had done this boring-ass desert drive in the last year. The owner of the Moonlight Bunny Ranch had turned out to be a real patriot. Last June, he had offered the first fifty returning Iraqi servicemen to visit the ranch free sex and 50 percent off for the next fifty days for all other returning military.

  “Does your wife know you go here?” the Saudi asked.

  “I’m not married at the moment,” Bassam said. “How about you?”

  “Next year, inshallah,” he answered. “It will be hard for you to find a good woman. Women don’t marry here. Just sleep around.”

  “I fucking wish, my friend,” Bassam said.

  The Saudi handed him a business card. “This woman, she doesn’t even know my name and she gave me her phone number,” he said. It was Candy Fatima the masseuse’s card. At least she had gotten over him.

  “She’s not cheap,” Bassam said. “She’s lonely. There’s a difference.”

  “There are more moral ways to be lonely,” the Saudi said.

  “Like going to a whorehouse?” Bassam asked.

  “I am not going in,” the Saudi said.

  “Your friends are,” Bassam said.

  “One of them is the older brother of the girl I am marrying next year, so I must be polite and ride in the car,” the Saudi explained. “The other two are only indulging in the drinking. But he will be upset if we spoil his fun, and it is our duty to allow him fun.”

  “Nothing like a free people.” Bassam smirked.

  “That’s our way,” the Saudi countered. “We have family obligations, and he is ours as his company employs half our families. You know how family is.”

  “Not really,” Bassam said.

  “Do you know what my wife to be told me about coming here?” the Saudi said. “She said that she would not marry a man who defies Islam by gambling, drinking, and whoring like her brother.”

  “Sounds like a good woman,” Bassam said.

  “She is,” the Saudi agreed. “Deep in the mine the gold dust is merely dust. … Gold, when extracted, grows much in demand, and when exported as aloe fetches gold. That is nine-hundred-year-old Arabian poetry, my brother, before we even knew we had what you Americans call the black gold. Whores and alcohol or severe Islam allows us to hide from the truth—which is that we let people with more money than us take our religion backward, that we made a deal with the devil for easy money in return for our silence.”

  All the talk of silence reminded Bassam of his sister. He exhaled and dialed Sam #2 on the car phone.

  “Listen, dude, where are you?” Bassam said to Sam #2.

  Sam #2 told him that he had just left his Saudis at the MGM for a little blackjack.

  “Perfect,” Bassam said. “I need you to pick up a girl at the Luxor and take her to the Venetian. After you pick her up, I’m going to call your cell phone and you pretend that I’m some other Sam and say in Arabic how hot you think she is.”

  “Compadre, you cannot get married tonight,” Sam #2 warned.

  “Her name is Lena. She’s my baby sister,” Bassam told him. “She’s visiting from New York.”

  “Bint Arab, mashallah,” said Sam #2. “Is she married?”

  “Not yet,” said Bassam.

  “Man, why not, homie?” said Sam #2. “How about Nassim for her?”

  Nassim was Sam #6, a pretty cool guy from Tunisia.

  “He’s just a fucking driver,” Bassam said.

  “Right,” Sam #2 agreed. “But homes, he has an engineering degree from Morocco.”

  “Just call me when she gets in the car but don’t say anything about me being on the line.”

  Bassam hung up. The Saudi was looking at him in the rearview mirror. Damn, he still wasn’t sleeping.

  “Why isn’t your sis
ter married?” the Saudi asked.

  “We kind of have a messed-up family,” Bassam replied.

  “That happens in America.” The Saudi sighed.

  “It happens everywhere, dude,” Bassam said. “We just talk about it. All the time. To our friends, on the radio, on TV, in chat rooms.”

  “It doesn’t seem to help,” the Saudi said.

  No, it doesn’t, Bassam thought. It’s all fucked up. I’m fucked up.

  A FEW MINUTES later Sam #2 was looking at Lena in the rearview mirror. She did not see him because she was watching a family outside Circus Circus celebrating the birthday of a boy who was sitting on his father’s shoulders, blowing a whistle. The boy’s hair was black and frizzed out by the Vegas steam, like hers.

  “People keep their kids out here too late, you know,” Sam #2 remarked.

  Lena nodded. The truth was that if Lena had had kids, she would have carried them on her shoulders any time of the night. In fact, every one of her birthdays for the last five years had been marked by tears for the children she had not given birth to, children who lived only in her imagination.

  Lena pulled out her Palm Pilot. She wanted to be a woman with a schedule that had ballet lessons, play dates, and soccer practice rather than back-to-back meetings with the sales team leaders on the coasts. There was just one more call scheduled for today: the toughest sales call of all. Lena dialed it.

  “Hi, Mom,” Lena said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Oh, habibti,” Fatima gushed on the other end of the line, as she always did no matter how late it was. Lena wished her mother didn’t get so excited every time she called. “It’s pretty humid here, Mom,” Lena replied. She found a few other adjectives to describe a June night in Vegas: hot, sticky, damp, balmy. That filled up another minute.

  “Everyone needs a witness to her life,” Fatima segued, not asking after Bassam. “You and your husband don’t have to love each other too much, but someone to know you are here on this earth. Someone who knows what you sounded like yesterday and will be there to hear how you sound tomorrow, even if he has nothing to say.”