You Shall Know Our Velocity! Read Online Free PDF Page B

had six hours. The shuttle bus filled and left and another arrived. We sat next to a young thin man, his head in his hands.
                "Air Afrique. Every time," he said. He was in a grey pinstriped suit. He looked about twenty-four, probably a student. Silver-framed glasses. Senegalese, we guessed, from the accent.
                "Are they a bad airline?" Hand asked. I wanted to ask why all the men going to Senegal were wearing the same glasses. Were they government-issued to men, as were pointy shoes in Italy?
                "Their safety record is fine," he said, "but they take their time. Always late. Terrible. They don't care."
                Next to us a white man, resembling in every way David Carradine in his latter Kung Fu days, was talking to another man, whom he had seemingly just met. We listened. We couldn't help but listen -- Carradine was loud and they were sitting inches from us. The other man was from Ghana and was visiting Senegal for the first time. Why he was coming through Chicago to do so was unclear but Carradine was the character here, lower teeth small, fishlike and sharp, a headband around his neck, stringy hair greasing his shoulders. We caught phrases, Hand and I leaning to hear the white man speak.
                "Well, God granted me abundant life. . ."
                His audience, the Ghanian man, was listening respectfully.
                ". . .I don't know why he has done this, what I have done to deserve this. . . other than my being honest and kind. . ."
                Carradine looked like a guy who would be selling handmade hemp wallets at a flea market. I was surprised Hand wasn't joining their conversation. This man was the type of guy Hand was inevitably chatting up. Hand had collected so many of these people, had so many stories, and always the stories involved someone he'd just met and instantly befriended -- there are people who meet strangers and people, like me, who know only those they've known from birth -- and usually Hand soon after loaned them money or, in two separate instances, allowed them to live in his garage.
                "Yes, I live like a king," the white man on the bus was saying, "and can entertain my friends from around the globe. . . Of course, I was never good at English. For three years I was in remedial English. . . my teachers didn't understand my individual needs for expression. . ."
                The shuttle stopped at the hotel. Carradine had five bags, which he struggled to lift, one over his shoulder, two in his left hand, two in his right. Hand took two for him, and the burdened white man followed us out. We stepped down from the shuttle into the lobby.
                "You been to Senegal before?" he asked Hand.
                Hand said we hadn't.
                "Well, you'll see more beggars and cripples there than in your whole life." He glanced at me. "You'll feel right at home."
                We walked into the lobby. Was that a joke about my face? It was, I think. We were in line now, waiting to check in. The white man looked at our shoes, our backpacks, gauging their contents.
                "So," he said, "you guys planning to do some drumming?"

                And we were still in America. We were in Schaumburg, or Bensenville, wherever this hotel was, and were walking down a quiet hall with purple and yellow crosshatched carpeting, and were not en route to Senegal and I hadn't -- I just realized -- packed shorts, and wouldn't get there until morning and had wasted the day. One of seven gone.
                Passing a middle-aged couple in matching jackets:
                -- You two need to change.
                -- What? Why? the middle-aged couple said, to my head, in my head.
                -- Because you are wearing the same jacket.
                --