Farouk Ali by davistrell@aol.com
A little story of Ali and his forty friends.
It was long ago, long ago, so long, as I forget, quite how long ago it was. In a bazaar with Turkish sworls and dervish citizens, flower-traders, carpet-baggers, the beggars, and the street boys, of which, one Farouk Ali, was the most wicked; and not cheap. He would hang out with his monkey-grin smile, his rapier wit, and lithe body, that men want, and they pay a pretty dinar for.
Dark as a coffee-stain on linen, agile, a jumper, a climber, and natural thief of hearts and money. Today, leaning from a balcony of a local minor official, he leaned, stared down at the courtyard below. Two men talking, and Farouk could hear ever word.
"Aziz, hold the donkey, while I...irrg... alight, good boy, .. that foreign donkey will be the death of me....Aziz, I am asking where are putting of the lamp...?"
"Safroud, I have the lamp, but you will be having yourself, to be asking of the merchant for the money giving back..."
The tall one with the shock of black hair, his ebony skin, covered indiscriminately with a blueish-green kaftan, golden embroidered, veed open over the chest, so the sheen of muscle flashed in the hot middday sun. His friend, Aziz,the Dakir, more beige of fleshtone, a green, paisley, full flowing shirt, a maroon color to his tights, so clear you could detect both, the crescent and two moons.
The Dakir, Aziz, a youth of almost twenty circulations of the sun, handsome as a glittery rendered picture in Sherriff Jarounna's book of possibilities, the bibliophile with the curious, well not curious, say specialized, form of illustrated pornography that this part of town is celebrated for producing, famous from here to Yonki, even to Persestamp. Impossible positions of course, but so much fun trying. As this narrator, can attest, having been making this up for the benefit of an unstimulated emperor, Kharli of Fornrnu. Who likes to be told tales of this nature, as you dear reader, must also enjoy, as you've gotten embroiled in my sordid tale thus far.
The bazaar was furiously alive. The sword swallower, the fire-eater, the sporty way you were offered breadstuffs, as you sampled wares. Sucking on a fig till you drew out the hard stone, buried within. Letting your chin dribble, with the blood of pomegranate, and to fill your cheeks with banana-mush and crushed grapes. And you buy cloth, imported from afar, cloth that would cling to the skin, be cool to the skin, while attempting to hide modesty. Children everywhere, like monkeys, so the stall-holders would have to concentrate, on childish theft, and ignoring the barter and trade, in front of the stalls. One of the fortyone boys, the naughty, Farouk, the bad Farouk, the damn'dest Farouk of all, Farouk Ali, now dressed in pajama pants of orange, the little cummerbund of silver and the blue jerkin, no shirt, as it was midsummer hot.
Looking down, while hugging a a balustrade of griffins he spied down, on Azis Muffrain, and his friend Saroud Chamazz. Two men out shopping on Friday, getting all ready for fasting at the weekend.
They entered the tent of Shalim Okefenok, the lamp trader, with the fresh sign, Newlamps, for Old. Saroud, the black-brown hued, so green his eyes, matching his tight robe, which he filled out unmercifully. Aziz, the Dakir, almost blonde with saffron hair,(Circassian Mother), the shimmering shirt, crossly folded his arms as the other, Saroud, walked up, flashing his lamp at the trader, brandishing it like as if were a cheap ornament. "Get his money back?", thought Farouk, watching, "and one day I will be queen of heaven...Ha!"
But to watch a trader's perfomance as he is being forced to give the money back. "Ha! this is fun," though Farouk looking down from his high vantage point.
"It is a failure! A deceit of a dog's bitch mother. It failed. Dakir, come thou here. This one damn instant."
"Its just a lamp, Saroud, wait, why not just buy another and we'll use that. Just not from here."
"It is a great failing in my sight, to fail to be fully comprehending the apparently insoluble situation you have so unfortunately have stumbled upon, " said the trader Shalim, espying an eye on the possibility of a trade.
Saroud his teeth flashing angrily, "you said this lamp, would ...would.."
"Esteemable young man, with, might this unworthy one say, noting the eyes of a connoisseur, a most honorable young man, what exactly was promised, that was not 'delivered', as it were..."
Saroud lunged his head forth, spittle spraying.
"Spawn of a sea-snail, you promised, that if I rubbed this lamp, I would have unestimable erections, multiplying, for entire evening. After my fifteenth ejaculation... I had perforce...needs for erection and though I rubbed, and naught would happen despite all rubbings..."
"I can vouch for that," said pretty-boy Azir, the Dakir. "He hung like a down-turned scimitar, and naught could I do to assist...."
" And try you must've, also, with knuckle-biting good looks though thou possess, and none could be soft in such presence," and saying so, he pushed emphatically the front of his dhoti down.
"But a minor misunderstanding taken a-wing, almost not mentioning that you, blackprince, should have lain still; whilst allowing; letting other, this unblemished beamish beauty, do the rubbing. A simple misunderstanding, and of course, no charge, for my fee."
Saroud looked puzzled, then not, and promptly handled the lamp to the Dakir, Aziz, who caught it easily, and started rubbing, gently at first. And then not; not gently. A cobra hooded head writhed out of the basket as the snake charmer blew out the only tune he knew. Saroud was pleased and shook hands with, Shalim the trader, and bowed, leaving ungainly backward, his hands at his breast, as if in prayer, body bent backward, as Aziz, the Dakir, still rubbed fervently on the lamp's spout.
Monkey-boy Farouk, jumped down, from the underhanging branch of a juniper tree, flipped an acrobatic leap, landed at their feet and stood before them, slyly.
"It will not work, handsome masters. Like Shalim Okefenok, it is a fraud, a silly thing, an attempt to off-load Occidental lamps."
They all looked puzzled. The monkey boy Farouk Ali, the fortyfirst, but topmost, streetwise, of all the street boys, but so jaded in appetite, as a rooster is when he's sees the first gleam of the sun.
He pulled back, the blue-green paisley kaftan, around the black Saroud's lower waist, pulled apart like drapes in a seraglio, remarked how little was held within.
"You think eight inches, little?"
"When it's hard maybe not...."
"And, so know-it-all street-ruffian, what will make my Saroud, arouse himself from this torpor..."
"T'will cost of all of eight hundred-forty-four dinar,..." Ali said in his best business-voice.
"The lamp only cost fourteen....
"Keep rubbing the lamp..." said Farouk Ali as he scampered away...