Page 29 - The Gluckman Occasional 7

back to my story. Like I said, the contract had ended, and I was
just killing time in the hotel bar before catching a plane to Rome.
It was late morning, not a very crowded time of day at the
Intercon, so I was sitting there nursing a beer all by myself,
watching the bottle sweat just like I had been sweating, week after
week.

Suddenly the door to the lobby bursts open and this guy rushes
in. He’s young, still in his twenties, and fairly good-looking—like
a surfer, blond and tanned. He sees me and comes running over.
“Are you an American? Do you speak English?” he says to me. I
nodded, and he said, “Oh, am I glad I found you! You’ve got to
help me!” and he said it in a way I knew he wasn’t fooling: this
guy was really scared. Then I noticed his outfit, and I cracked up.

How would I describe it? Well, he wasn’t wearing anything I’d
ever seen before. Not the local sort of things—you know, like
long robes and little coiled turbans that make you look like a
target in a carnival ring-toss. No, this was almost a stage costume.
He had on a pair of baggy white trousers gathered up at the waist
and ankles, and an open sleeveless vest made of some gold-and-
purple cloth with sequins sewn all over it. Nope, no shirt—and
no shoes, either; just a pair of pointed slippers. So you can see
why I laughed, right?

Well, he didn’t think there was anything funny about his situation,
and in other circumstances I would have had a fight on my
hands. And this guy looked to be in pretty good shape. Anyway,
he was so desperate he kept on at me until I stopped laughing.
“All right,” I finally tell him, “you’ve made my day. Nothing
should surprise me in this God-forsaken place.” And then I
offered to buy him a beer. But he couldn’t even sit down, he was
so upset.

“Listen,” he says to me, all the while keeping an eye on the door,
“I don’t have much time. They’ll figure out where I went, and
they’ll come looking for me.” “Oh,” says I, “and who might they
be?” Then it all came out, but really fast, so I can’t remember his
exact words. I still didn’t take him seriously; I thought maybe he
was the ambassador’s kid, and he’d gotten a case of sunstroke.