You Shall Know Our Velocity! Read Online Free PDF

we were going to play softball.
                "We can't wait," I said.
                "We have to go," said Hand.
                So Greenland was out. Katabatic my ass. Fuck Greenland. I looked to Hand. Was that anguish or shock? The GreenlandAir woman suggested we hold onto the tickets and use them tomorrow. Hand look like he'd burst.
                "We've already lost so much time," he said.
                "It's only noon," the woman said.
                "Noon!" he said. I didn't know why he was so upset. It was my damned idea.
                We walked out of the terminal and paced around in the cold, running through possibilities, Hand babbling. Hand has a way of talking to you, eyes staring through yours, unblinking, jaw moving that suggests either great intensity or plain country madness.
                A Lincoln Towncar pulled up and from it disembarked a black family in bright dashikis. A skycap appeared and helped them with their bags. The African father paid the skycap with two bills, nodding with the placement of each upon the skycap's palm, and the skycap said "Thank you, sir." The family walked in and through the shushing slowly closing automatic doors and I watched them glide, bright fabric swishing, to the Air Afrique desk, a few feet from GreenlandAir. I walked in after them and Hand followed.
                On the small ancient screen their flight was listed in weak green light. Air Afrique, 1:50 P.M. to Dakar.
                "Where's Dakar?" Hand asked.
                I dug into my backpack and checked my atlas.
                "Senegal."
                The tickets cost us $1,600 for the pair, one-way, a price I justified by thinking -- wrongly -- that we'd get a refund on the Greenland two. It was the most money I'd ever spent at once. Even the two cars I'd ever bought were less -- $800 and $1,400, both Corollas. I thought of the people who could live or eat off money like this -- how many people and for how long. We were motherfucking bastards . I buried the shame deep within. I burned it and danced around it, leapt over it. We were going to Senegal and I got the tickets so we'd return to O'Hare from Cairo. That way we'd fly to Dakar, would be able to get across the continent and end up at the Pyramids before flying back -- and wouldn't have to see Dakar twice. Genius.
                We were told to wait for a gate assignment. The floor was now full of Senegalese in dashikis, mostly men, all black, all with glasses, silver-framed, looking like a U.N. delegation or some kind of. . . some kind of group of men who liked to dress the same. After fifteen minutes an announcement was made. The flight, scheduled to leave at 1:50 P.M., would be late in taking off. We walked to the desk. How late? we asked. It was now scheduled, the woman said with a straight face, for 9 P.M. Hand fell to his knees. He was hammy that way. I waited for him to get up, which he did with a clap as punctuation, and we walked away.
                "This is a joke," he said.
                "The dashiki guys aren't mad," I said, pointing to their group, chatting, milling. They seemed at peace, resigned.
                Hand wanted to try again, to get a refund and fish for anything else. Togo, Franz Josefland. I couldn't decide. Where were the flights that actually left the ground? All we wanted was another continent, as soon as possible. We asked if they knew anything more about the departure time, the possibilities. Were they sure it would be so late? How could they be so sure?
                The Air Afrique woman had an answer: "Because the plane hasn't left Dakar yet."
                The plane from Chicago to Dakar hadn't left Dakar for Chicago.

                There was a shuttle bus taking the passengers to the Best Western, where we were each given a room. We