BARBARIAN AT THE GATE

BARBARIAN AT THE GATE

PM0906132

The gates loomed above me as I got off the bus,

I had been looking out the window,

and as I spotted the King David Hotel and

considered getting off and going on to use their

washrooms. The hostel washroom had been very busy

that morning and the smell had sent me outside

to urinate against the side of the wall.

Everyone out at nine in the morning sharp, a cookie

and some orange juice, that was the free fucking

breakfast? The orange juice was canned, we had

passed acres of orange groves on the ride from the

airport and I was given an paper cup of canned juice?

Anybody would have felt ripped off.

Back to the gate, it was so high, how the hell did they

build that without using a modern day crane,

it must have taken years,

I entered, everyone looked seedy, not a smiling

face in sight.

I was glad I hadn't shaved in days and I had

left my backpack at the hostel so I didn't think I

looked like a tourist, a terrorist perhaps! The aroma

of nearly a thousand different food stalls permeated my

nostrils and slapped me right across the face.

Finally I felt somewhere strange, exotic, alien,

everything I didn't want to see wasn't there,

no McDonalds or Dairy Queen,

and not a doughnut in sight. No sign of

the stars and stripes here but the sight of

so many yarmukhas and uzis in the same spot

was unnerving, so nothing I had ever seen before

and as I stopped to buy some sesame cakes

from a vendor I got some strange looks,

as though I shouldn't have been buying

anything from this person.

I walked on, munching, but still feeling very

uneasy and I couldn't dream of a spot I might

fit in here.

The ugly foreigner, perhaps, but I wasn't up to no

good and they should have known that.

I continued on my adventure through the city,

so much to buy and not a lot of money in my pocket,

learn to shop with your eyes at all times, I was told,

you don't have the means to carry any of that shit

around with you even if you could afford it.

Leave it for the rich Americans who could pay for the

extra luggage and who had lots of room to store the shit

when they got back to Albuquerque.

I smelled hash coming from the back of one of the stalls,

now there was something I could afford, and finally

someone smiled at me as I walked towards the back

of the stall.

MCC