Chapter 2

Sure enough, I’m sucked by the shifting crowds, the hassle, the noise, the noise, the street… contrast and change. Once again, I am in Casablanca, the largest man-made shit-hole in Morocco, four million inhabitants and as many commuters: the Moroccan industrial capital; the economic heart of this blessed nation. A dump if you ask me, even that French quarter I live in, a city within another; ‘le centre ville’ as it is so pompously called, a standing symbol of colonialism, of the unchecked and unbalanced socio-cultural struggle that’s been gnawing at my world, massive chunk by massive chunk, from within, and from before I even had a chance to open my eyes.

There is so much hatred in me for this citadel of mediocrity that I perceive everything from the worst angle there is. There is a problem with everything, and there is no need to go digging beneath the surface to figure this out. No, no there just is no need to start an excavation mission to uncover the facts, layers upon layers of despicable truths, history told unfiltered to anyone who can remember and is depressed enough to listen –and as you can already tell, I am the perfect candidate.

An overly familiar miasma of wrongness hits me, without a second’s delay, as soon as I reached the outskirts of this industrial heaven and, managed to follow me all the way to that parking structure where I rent space for Belinda; my Yamaho 750, chromed blue, a beauty, bought her brand new. Belinda is my baby, my main and only mode of transportation, of escape. With her, I’m never caught in traffic jams, never late, never stuck, and more importantly never alone. She’s rusty from too much humidity and salt, but inside she’s still a beast. There is no telling how many times her and I got lost together, following uncharted trails along the sensuously winding north western African coastline, as far as the Mauritanian desert and, unfortunately, back to this sterile looking building, this fortress of dullness, a perfect example of all the things I am dying to escape.

The garage is a single story building with a steal galvanized roof stained by mold, raised thirty feet of the ground, resting on solid I-shaped beams, covering a dusty place with two huge openings, which are used both as entrance and exit, and which more importantly I am accustomed to finding locked after midnight –a great inconvenience with its share of tensions.

There is no saying how many times I’ve been heard pounding on those vertically sliding stealthy doors, making as much ruckus as required to bring Aslam -the dark skin giant who had emigrated from the Sahara desert to become a parking garage attendant- out of his deep and peaceful slumber and have him, grunt and push the door I’ve turned to some sort of awfully sounding drum open.

Aslam loves sleeping, I don’t. Therefore, we often go at, with gusto, throwing all sorts of insults, cursing our respective ancestors, verbally releasing both tension and anger, before I can park my bike and go home to suffer, staring my curse in the eye as it whispers horrifying premonitions involving my very grim future, until exhausted I am finally alowed to pass out.

As far as Aslam and I are concerned, I have to admit that our relationship hasn’t been as healthy as it could have, but given our inherent differences, there probably was no escape from the existing conflict between the desert’s giant, (with fresh memories of arid freedom and sandy vastness keeping him from suffocating in that improvised living quarter of his -a dark room inside a gruesome parking space,) and a claustrophobic and greatly confused urbanite, dying from his city’s madness, and fantasizing about distant places to discover and call home. Yet, somehow the sun would always bring along a truce during which we’d exchange greetings, just as we do today, and as if everything is and has always been fine.