Chapter 1: Mendi
“You are going away on a trip, Weston. The company needs you to oversee the operations at the oil district in Kuwait.”
That was all they said to me before I could even process what on Earth made them send me, Charles Weston, to a hell-hole like Kuwait, of all places.
I was never really good at my job. I was caught drunk a couple of times entering codes and practically messing up my own projects that took me a month of auditing and re-coding until I could even comprehend what I had done in my drunken ego trip.
Now, I know I hate Richard to death. He is no more a boss than a slave driver would be a slave’s best friend but sometimes you do stupid things when filled with alcohol and what I did made shit hit the fan and just coat the room in a big stinking pile of shit. It didn’t help that it made Richard lose a million dollar deal.
That was all that Richard said to me a month after that fiasco and I figured he might try to get me back for it, just not like this.
“I can’t leave, Boss. I have family here and I don’t know anything about Kuwait.”
“- Well it’s either you take this transfer and a raise with the good graces of this company...or you can go flip burgers at the local McDonalds for that fuck up you cost me last month. I’m being nice here.”
Go fuck yourself, Rich boy. I didn’t mind the raise at all but it was the whole idea of going to a country that I knew nothing about not to mention how I was going to tell Jane that I’m moving to the middle of Operation Desert Storm country. I lied about having a family, I used it an excuse to get Richie off my back a couple a times when I was too drunk to come into work but still...how dare he!
I couldn’t argue as Richard walked away, smug in his arrogant swagger, probably pleased with himself for roughing up the nerdy programmer the way jocks would give those poor saps wedgies and slam them into a locker. I wasn’t a kid anymore but what could I do? He had the support of the board and everyone in the office...they all wanted me gone.
I won’t lie, I’m no saint...but I wasn’t very friendly either. I found out that everyone around me were nothing but clueless sheep while I was a strong and powerful alpha male (I read that on my Personality Test results on PersonalityYou.com). I was smarter than everyone and I hate how they all just jump and dance to the tune of the piper, in this case, any established government that told them what was accepted or not.
I hated everyone but I hated what was happening to me a lot more.
By noon, I was packed and set with a ticket waiting for me at the airport counter. Richard couldn’t care less how little a time he gave me to pack and prepare for this trip but that salary-raise was mine and he couldn’t fake that...they sent me the contract with a letter stating that I was “Essential in establishing a relationship with the Middle Eastern branch and the head quarters for smooth transactions”...Those pompous pricks.
I couldn’t figure out how to tell Jane so I decided to go ahead and just block all her calls and make my way to the car, forgetting I could have sold the damned thing for extra cash. Some bum is going to get lucky using the thing as a hotel once he breaks into it while I’m gone and I won’t even warn him about that burrito on the floor of the back seat that I left there for three weeks.
The sky looks like shit, the city looks like shit, the whole world looks like a steaming pile of crap and I just hate how much I have to wallow in it and pretend it tastes like sweet caramel mocha when it’s nothing but crumbling waste in my mouth. I just hate everything and hate Richard most of all for being part of that privileged elite that could tell people like me what to do and where our place in this whole crappy system was.
The airport was littered with people lugging around huge cases and dragging backpacks around that could hold a dead body inside while I was busy thinking of who to call to make a quick sell of my car to...at 2 in the morning.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out I couldn’t get anyone and it didn’t help that as I was walking over to the duty-free area after all the security checks and luggage check-in counter that I forgot my wallet inside one of my bags that I had put onto the conveyor belt to be considered “cargo” by now.
I never used to be this upset with the world. I loved many things in life like watching magic shows and playing video games, it wasn’t until high school that I found my love for coding and making stuff out of a language I was proud to know that people didn’t, even if it wasn’t a spoken one.
No one can speak in Java Script. I was brilliant at it though.
I created my first program by 15 and wowed my friends and enemies with my genius that I wasn’t treated like an outcast and invited to parties because they found out that with my knowledge, I could be a pretty good DJ and I sure did.
I lost my virginity at 16 with some senior girl who had too much to drink who loved the little DJ with a cute hat (that’s me) and dragged his cute ass into a bedroom.
It was the best 2 minutes of my life...wasn’t hers.
As the plane readied for takeoff, I was seated at a window seat and stared out the window until the flight attendant had to pull them down before the plane would take off the run way and jet into the air. I never do well in cramped spaces, I hate how much you had to care about the other people around you so I put myself out of the view of others by trying to doze off and ignore the whole world I’d grown to hate so much.
I hated the hum of the aircraft; the stuffiness of the air conditioned air and just couldn’t escape all the notions of things that annoyed me so I secretly lifted the blinds of the window to my right and stared into the nothingness of the night sky.
The moon was bright and luminous with its halo encircling it as if a beautiful aura. The skies, though dark, were peaceful with all the stars coming out to play as they glittered in the undisturbed heavens for we were so high up above the clouds that nothing could distort the beauty of their lights.
I felt peace for once, as if I was sailing on a quiet ocean and walking on clouds...that was until my seatmate had to go ahead and ruin everything for me by talking too loudly with the guy seated behind me.
As much as I hate the world, I hate obnoxious people more. It was as if the world had turned from rightly valued citizens of the 1930s and 40s into these selfish babies who didn’t give a crap if they ever inconvenienced other people and believed they were all the next big thing to hit the world... but I could see through their fragile mask and how much their egos were weak and nothing but bundled insecurities wrapped up in a brimming arrogance.
I was not like them...I was above them, I was Ten, no...Twenty times better than all of them!
I am the Alpha Male, I don’t bow to anyone! I am smarter, better and more cognitively superior than all the people in this plane combined.
I recall the time I first met Richard and how much I knew I’d hate him from the start.
Introduced to the team as the boss’ nephew, he quickly waited for us all to kiss his ass and suck up to him which many in the office did, those worthless leeches.
They buttered him up and tried to ride on his coattails as he sat down and let us do all the work; riding up in his fancy sports car and wearing his sunglasses while in the office- he thought the workplace was a private night club where he reigned over everybody who worked under his uncle.
He would then get coffee from these random office-mates, mostly women who wanted his riches and a fast ladder out of the middle class as well as from managers who wanted to be in his uncle’s good graces. He would sit at the office for two hours then drive off elsewhere while his load was dumped on all of us.
That’s how I ended up here, a project that was supposedly his was dumped on me along with the fact I was already handling 5 projects of my own. He did his usual disappearing act and left the office and expected that his project would be done by the managers but when he had gone, they realized it was out of their capability and drilled me down to finish it for them so they would over look the fact I was late on 3 projects and for my coming into work drunk.
Fuck them all...I enjoyed my midnight binge at the club with Jane that night, I enjoyed getting crazy high on the drugs she gave me and the moment I felt I was a God was when I fucked up that whole project while saying out loud “I’m the Alpha Male, I’m the Alpha Male, I’m the Alpha Male!”...this was exactly what I wrote randomly all over the code script.
And why should I be ashamed, I even managed to fix it all up before anyone could find out but by the time I did, they gave the contract to someone else and I was left with that million dollar program with no purpose or buyer...or rather, Richard was.
The boss crucified Richard who quickly found a way to sell the damned thing for half the price to the competitor of the first buyer then I never heard from anyone for a whole month, left quietly to finish up my pending projects...until this friggin’ morning when Richard walked in and sent me to a sandy prison.
In any case, it didn’t matter. The plane slowed its speed down and the signs overhead were set blinking. I had no idea I had fallen asleep from somewhere when I had my last meal some 8 hours ago to this moment when the flight attendants were checking all of us to see that we wore our seatbelts as the Fasten Seatbelt sign blinked on.
I don’t know when it was that I lost all sense of emotions...maybe it was when Kayla left me and took half my stuff with her to California while leaving me with nothing but her debts or when my father used to beat the crap out of me for not being more like my high school football team captain brother who eventually ended up being a drug addict or was it when I first had sex as that 15 year old...I don’t really know, it was like magic was long gone in my life and I can see all the tricks and sleight of hands and there was no more wonder or excitement in the world.
“Marhaban bikum, this is your Captain Fahad Ahmad Al-Khaifan, we have now landed in the Kuwait International Airport. Please be seated until all seatbelts signs have been turned off. The time now is 10 PM and the weather outside is a good 30 degrees Celsius. On behalf of the crew and flight deck, we would like to say, thank you for flying with us on Kuwait Airways and may you enjoy your stay.”
The plane ambled by on the tarmac as the people bustled around me as if they didn’t just hear the announcement and started getting up off their seats, reaching for their bags at the overhead storage compartments despite strapped in flight attendants yelling at them to maintain being seated until the aircraft has completely stopped.
It always irks me at how much people have no regard for how much people do to keep them safe and yet, like little children, they choose to ignore it and say “I’m all growed up” like a five year old in their minds while unfastening their seatbelts and turning the cabin into a crowded fish market with everyone yelling, talking loudly and slamming overhead compartments shut after pulling down their carry-on baggage.
I wait and let the torrent of hurrying people get out the aisles and drag their bags out the aircraft doors while flight attendants jostle around trying to get them out with much frustration while I keep in my seat.
I get up as the last person in my cabin aisle leaves through the opened aircraft door and proceed to get my bag until I see a flight attendant silently curse under her breath from something a passenger left behind in his seat, finding out that it was a bag filled with vomit.
“If it means anything...I’m sorry you had to take care of ignorant people like that. I know how it feels.” I said as I pulled down my own bag from the overhead bin.
“It’s alright, Sir. It happens, enjoy your stay.”
“You don’t have to pretend you like it; you know...I think you have the right to be mad. It’s not right for people to treat you this way.”
She stared at me in a way I knew was usually what women gave off to tell men to back off and mind their own business but I understood anger and I probably found it comfortable to be talking to someone who seemed to understand how it felt...to be under appreciated.
“Look, I know you think I’m hitting on you and all but I’m not. I just understand how much they disrespect you in your job and not think about how much you got to do for them. I just wanted to say that I’m grateful for all you do and that I hope it doesn’t always get to you.”
She cracked away from her facade of that odd and cold-hearted resting bitch face she had a moment ago and gave me a glimpse of the human inside when she smiled at me and nodded in my direction.
“Thank you, Sir. It means a lot to hear that from a passenger.”
“Call me Charles, please. Thank you again.” I said, wanting her to hear the sincerity in my voice.
I could stay here longer and draw this conversation out, she seems like a nice girl and maybe it might give me a new start to this hell hole of a place. I hear it has no alcohol so I’m really going to be like I’m in rehab...why not try to make this work?
I tried to think of everything to say to her but as time ticked away so did the purpose of this conversation and so I nodded back and took my carry on back pack, making my way out the plane to look back at her one last time, catching her looking at me with a blush on her face.
“Thank you, Sir. We hope you enjoyed the flight, please fly with us again!” I heard the flight attendant by the door say and all I could think of was to turn to her and say: “What’s her name?”,
“Oh, her name is Olivia, Sir. Did she do something wrong, do you have a complaint?”
I shook my head as I turned away and smiled at her while walking through the sky bridge to the arrival area.
“Welcome! Welcome, Sir! Welcome to the State of Kuwait! My name is Jassem and I’ll be showing you around. Let me get your bags, Sir.”
“No, thank you, that won’t be necessary- - “I stopped as I watched my host call on a small Indian man in a harsh tone and watched as the poor man scrambled to grab my bags from my trolley and lug them into the back seat.
“Does he work for you?” I asked, wondering if maybe I was reading it all wrong.
“No, no...He works for the airport; it’s his job to lift the bags for the people.”
I look at the poor man moving in the humid heat, wearing a full body suit matted in sweat while beads of his perspiration was lined on his forehead. I thought to myself that this man must be working really hard and so I proceeded to locate my wallet to give him a tip when Jassem zoomed out of the parking lot and into the wide and heavily trafficked streets of Kuwait.
“I was about to tip him.”
“Why? They get salary. We don’t tip them here, it’s their job so they should do it right. In any case, enough of that, are you hungry?”
Jassem was a man with an immaculately trimmed beard, it was as if he didn’t shave it himself while his headdress was a white sheet that he neatly packed unto the top of his head with a coil of black rope. He wore the typical Arab robe I had grown accustomed to seeing from all the news about the Middle East but his aroma was of a heavy fragrance that had a strong musky smell while he had golden cuffs on his sleeves with an obviously expensive golden pen in his chest pocket.
His car was a whole other matter as it was a huge Escalade with tweaked up speakers and if I wasn’t mistaken, lights beaming from the undercarriage of the car; customized to the brim with all sorts of things that would never be allowed back home unless you were filming the Fast and Furious movies.
“We are so glad that they had finally sent you over to our branch, you wouldn’t believe the crazy things involved in the I.T department this time of year. We can talk about all those details after we have dinner; you are our guest here and in the Arab world that means you will be treated like royalty.”
Appreciation.
Finally!
I took time to look out the tinted windows into the streets outside and saw immaculate sidewalks devoid of much people that trailed in long stretches of dry desert grounds with houses littered in the backgrounds that all looked like replicas of the white house.
The streets, themselves, were littered with a random collection of sports cars and huge GMC SUVs along with modern Japanese cars and at times, beat up old Toyota 1.8 pickup trucks with sheep stowed away at the back that bleated at the cars behind them.
It was a surreal scene and I couldn’t believe I was really here as Jassem talked away about odd American references and his time in Minnesota when he was staying there with his cousin who studied at the state University. I hardly enjoy small talk and just supplemented his conversation with “Oh really?”, “Wow” and “Seriously?”
I found those three responses massaged people’s egos well enough for them not to catch on how much I didn’t care.
We stopped at some restaurant in a bustling neighbourhood with bright lights from every store sign as if I had walked right into the Las Vegas strip as he popped open my door and lead me to a place with no tables or chairs, just elevated floors covered in thick carpet and lined along the wall with cushions that made up places to sit in.
“This is an authentic Arabic restaurant. I want you to enjoy the taste of the Arab life in the best Mendi house in Kuwait. Baab Al-Adan!”
“What’s mendi?” I asked, worried it might be something like haggis which I have no stomach for. I like a few things and spaghetti, pizza, steak, burgers and fries were all I was accustomed to...sheep’s balls and the like, I was not ready for.
He took a seat on the elevated area and had taken off his slippers while sitting cross legged, pulling off his cigarette, phone and sunglasses off of him and placing it on the ground beside the cushions.
“Mendi is lamb that has been cooked in a very special way. It was first salted then dried and cooked by the heat of the sun while placed in a jar under the sand then when it’s all dried out like your beef jerky, it is heated in an oven like a fireplace. It’s a delicacy from Yemen.”
I could picture how it would look like but by mind couldn’t really grasp the imagination of the whole process just choosing instead to wait for it while Jassem leaned against the wall, seated on one of the cushions and invited me to sit on the one next to him that separated us with a cushion arm rest in between.
“I know you have fears about our food but trust me, it’s similar to that time I first tasted a sloppy joe in your country. I thought it was a disgusting way to give food but when I took that first bite, I couldn’t get enough of it. Trust me, you will like mendi. Do you like rice?”
“I ate it a couple of times while having Chinese takeout.”
“You will love our rice, its basmati rice from India and it will mix well with the lamb.” I didn’t know what to say on it because I had no clue what either was or had ever eaten Indian cuisine.
By the time the meal had been brought to us by an Indian waiter, it was beyond more than I could eat. It was served in a huge plate with rice literally littered all over it with a steaming leg of a lamb just stacked on top of it that gave a sweet aroma while glistening in a golden color. The rice was equally yellowed and had on it raisins and other little things that seemed to enhance the aroma of the whole dish.
“Would you like a spoon?” Jassem asked, pulling up the cuffs of his sleeve to fold above his elbow, preparing to use his hands.
“Uh- yes please...how do you eat it?” I asked, following his lead and rolling up my own.
“Bismillah” was all I heard out of him as he moved himself closer to the large plate.
He pecked at the rice with his hand and clumped it up into a ball that rolled on the crook of his fingers and scooped it into his mouth while shredding off some of the lamb that was in front of him and bringing it to his lips.
I watched and waited for my spoon to try this unique dish as Jassem continued on eating. The restaurant had many men doing the similar thing and seating themselves very near the plate while scooping up rice with their hands as others slurped soup from a bowl near the plate and some crunched at lettuce leaves from a small dry salad plate near the bottle of water placed for them to pour themselves a drink right to the side of the main dish.
“Babu, jeeb ma’alagha! Yallah, yallah, jaldi karo!”
I couldn’t understand anything he said but the small Indian man who was running to us like he had done something wrong brought a spoon quickly and kept apologizing as Jassem dismissed him with a grunt while he scuttled back to the back of the room and stood there.
“Here, a spoon for you. Come on Chuck, eat with me. “
I scooped a spoonful of rice and placed shreds of the lamb on top as Jassem lightly laughed and just shook his head while I took my first bite.
The flavours burst into my mouth with a very mix of sweet tenderness from the lamb melting away in my mouth to the smokiness it had from the furnace it had been heated on. The rice melded perfectly with it having a slightly coarse texture but carrying with it a taste that had the nuttiness of peanuts or pecan while the raisins afforded me a surprise in the change of texture and flavour that would slip into the dry texture of the whole dish.
By the time we were done, I could hardly stand and stayed floored with a pot belly while Jassem laughed at me after washing his hands at this public sink near the end of the restaurant. He offered me a cigarette which I passed on while he placed a stick on his lips and just proceeded to light it up and looked at the same Indian man who had given me a spoon before.
“Babu, jeeb tafaya!” he yelled at the guy who squirmed and scuttled at the same frantic pace he did before to bring him an ashtray.
There was a lot I didn’t know about Kuwait and it wasn’t my place to judge but I didn’t feel good with the way they treated their Indian workers.
“So Chuck, I hope you enjoyed the meal. I told you it was good.”
I nodded and took a sip of my water trying not to move too much.
“It was delicious. I definitely love mendi.” I finally said with a smile as he nodded his head and blew a ring of smoke out.
“Trust me, you will love Kuwait. It’s not America, mind you, but it has its charms. We definitely have a more restaurants than most places in the Gulf and there are the occasional parties but only in embassies, homes or by the Sheikh’s relatives.”
A show was shown on the television where it was badly made in productions in that you could see the backgrounds were painted and the actors were heavily powdered. Jassem kept laughing as they portrayed this bumbling guy with a turban and huge curved moustache, supposedly as an Indian on TV, played by one of their own actors and speaking weirdly but oddly enough sounded like the Arabic Jassem spoke in...Just broken.
“I love this show; it’s one of the funniest in the country right now. Bidi Badu Raju.”
“What’s it about?” I asked, wondering what made it funny. Back home, we had people like David Letterman and Conan O Brien which we find funny from telling jokes but here I was watching a show were a turbaned man with fake moustache and curly tipped shoes got bopped on the head with a frying pan, slapped till he turned all the way around and having a car run over his foot- reminding me of the old slapstick comedy of the Three Stooges...but they were funny, this show was just cruel as if all it would do was find ways to hurt the Indian man.
“It’s about this Hindi guy who comes into the country and can’t speak Arabic too well so he tries to find a way home but everyone just keeps playing tricks on him. It’s very funny.”
I didn’t find it funny...it was sad and looking at the guy they called “Babu” stand at the back, fidgeting and looking around the room to attend to people who called his name just made it equally uncomfortable.
Many men were laughing while watching the show; I just stuck to drinking my coffee that Babu had gotten me after I asked him nicely.
Amazingly though, he could speak English.
We left the restaurant talking about the current situation of the company and how in the morning he’d be picking me up to take me to the office so I could meet the whole team. I had enough excitement for one night that by the time I had arrived at the hotel, I dropped dead on the plush bed and just faded away into sleep.
Kuwait...this odd country with its odd rules. I wonder what surprises it held for me.
I looked out at window and catch the glimpse of the Kuwait towers far off in the night, a symbol of their power and supposedly a symbol of their having survived the Gulf War that Saddam Hussein had once brought upon them long ago, but from here, all it looked like were globes spinning on a top pocked with lights; like UFOs had gotten stuck on space needles...
I wondered what was next for me. What tomorrow brought and if this place could give me a new start from all the frustrations I suffered back home...
I give up trying to think as my eyes slowly droop while I looked on from my hotel towards the towers remembering Olivia as my eyes shut and all turns to black.
-Larz Graveus Wrath