Giza, Egypt, November 20, 2023

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That night, after the long day of museums, I leave the hotel just at dusk. I want to go walk for a bit, but I can’t seem to go 50 feet without someone wanting to sell me something.

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“Where are you from?” the guy in front of the souvenir shop says.

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 “Let me guess,” he says “Mexico?”

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“I’m not from Mexico,” I say.

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“My boss lives in Mexico, come on in.”

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What else do I have to do? Inside I wind up talking with the shop owner. A nice guy, from Egypt, with a wife from Chiapas. They live in Mexico City, he tells me. We go back and forth between Spanish and English before settling on English.

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British customers, a guy in dreadlocks and a girl in a scarf, are having a cup of tea. They ask me where I have been, where I am heading.

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“Alexandria is next,” I tell them.

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“We love Sharm Al-Sheikh,” the guy says, “but we didn’t like Alexandria that much. We were only there one day. And went around town with a taxi driver. The Red Sea is great, but it’s nine hours, and we had to take an overnight bus. But, when you weigh one against the other, the Red Sea is still better.”

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The shop owner says, “Alexandria is a day trip, and that’s all you really need to see.”

“Maybe I just want to relax,” I say.

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“Go to the Red Sea,” the Englishman says, “the vibe is better.”

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But I am not interested in a vibe. I am interested in Alexandria and all it conjures in my mind: Cleopatra and Marc Anthony, Alexander the Great, the library, history, cosmopolitanism, and Mediterranean intrigue. Lots of places have a vibe. Only Alexandria has all of those things in one spot.

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*

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I walk out of the small neighborhood and down the main street, Abu El Haul El Seyahy. People have cautioned me to be careful of the pushy touts out there, trying to sell hotels and tours, or souvenirs, but I just want to see it for myself.

As I walk out and head north, a man is holding a horse’s leg up while another guy shaves off part of the hoof, getting ready to hammer on a new horseshoe. I pass a tire shop where a man has rolled out a prayer rug while the call to prayer is going off. Cars are creeping along, bumper to bumper. Every fifth one is honking the horn. There’s trash all over the ground, so much the people don’t even notice it. A man is smoking a cigarette in a plastic chair with his feet resting on plastic bags. A guy with a giant beard smiles after he finishes a phone conversation, hangs up the phone, puts it in his pocket and slides into a waiting car that drives off. Another man in a grocery store doorway stares at me while I pass without saying a word. Other people say hi to me because they want something. A street dog sleeps in the dust of an abandoned building and a forklift drives by as fast as the cars. It’s the only thing that doesn’t honk. Everything is noise and confusion. A Volkswagen van serves as public transportation, and the side doors and rear trunk are wide-open. A horse and buggy moves by, and the driver plays with a cigarette pack, trying to pull out a smoke, his eyes never looking at the road while the horse trots ahead at a rhythmic pace. One shop sells only blankets, another only table cloths, another only wheelchairs and crutches. A feral cat scoots between bushes and automobile tires, and then passes two dogs sleeping in the sand, giving them a wide berth. The call to prayer is still going off and a man crosses the street in an act of daring that I wouldn’t want to duplicate. The dust and pollution make my eyes sting and I walk as far as a bakery. It’s the only thing around here that smells good. I turn around and make my way back down the street, now heading south.

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I pass the corner where I would make the turn to my hotel, and decide to keep going. I’m not hungry enough yet to eat, and I don’t want to sit around in the room. I figure I’ll make my way a few blocks this way, see what’s down there, even if it’s more of the same it’s better than just sitting in the room.

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“My friend, where are you from?”

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This guy looks like bad news, in a shabby business jacket and bright white pants. He is missing a couple of teeth.

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“Oh, American? US. Oh, USA! Great! But… you look like Egyptian,” with this he touches his face because I have a beard.

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“This is why I like you,” he says, “You look Egyptian.”

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I put a hand out, “No thank you.”

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“You shouldn’t be afraid of Egyptians, what are you afraid?”

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This man is a criminal. It is written on him like a stink that won’t wash off. The whole are you afraid thing is a way to challenge a guy. To challenge his ego, to get him show he is not afraid by staying and talking. The same thing happened to me in Nairobi. A guy had asked me if I was afraid, and I remember thinking, no, I just don’t like you. Same here.

 

I keep the hand out, “I am not buying anything, just walking,”

“Can I give you a business card?”

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“I don’t need your business card,” I say.

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“Come to my shop, I have one at my shop. Come look.”

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“No, I’m not going to your shop.”

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“My sister is there and we have perfumes, oils, papyrus,” he says.

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“No thanks,” I say, “I admire your determination but I am not buying anything.”

He reaches to shake my hand. I do not want to shake his hand, but good manners die hard, even in weird situations. We shake hands. I am still walking, don’t break stride, and let go to get my arm back.

He’s been walking with me for at least half a block now. In east Africa they call guys like him “fly catchers” because they follow you around trying to get money and you can’t get rid of them, they stick to you like flypaper. In Tanzania, I had to duck into shops to get them to leave me alone.

“Right down there,” he gestures as he follows me, standing too close, “I only have a few things to sell. Yes, I have everything, perfume, carpets, everything.”

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“No,” I say, I turn back to face him so he gets the hint.

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Then a young man is walking behind him, I can see him over his shoulder, but the young guy is looking at me. I recognize him as one of the staff from the hotel. He’s looking over the conman at me and he’s shaking his head as if to say no, no, no, this guy is trouble, and that’s when I say “No,” in Arabic forcefully this time, hold out my hand and the conman stops.

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I continue walking.

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“This man bad man, this man crazy man,” hotel guy says.

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“This man take your money. Walk there OK,” he says, pointing back where we came from, “walk up there OK,” he points onward down the main street, “but only with light, no light, no walk.”

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Copy that, stick to the lighted areas only.

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“What’s your name?”

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“Franklin,” I say.

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“Franklin, Moza,” and he points to himself. We shake hands.

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We say nice to meet you to each other in Arabic, and exchange pleasantries.

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Then he starts to explain in English.

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He says, “you understand Arabic,” in Arabic, and starts explaining things in Arabic, sees I don’t quite follow, and goes back to English.

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“Don’t go anywhere with this man, this man is a crazy man bad man. I will be there, home in there,” he points across the street to the east, “and work at hotel. I’ll give you number. Phone?”

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I hand him my phone and he puts his number in it, and calls himself to make sure it rings.

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“Crazy man talk to you, you call me,” he says.

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“I’ll be careful.”

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“Yes, be careful,” and then we shake hands and say nice to meet each again other in Arabic, and I think how knowing just a few words in a language can go a long way.

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He heads across the road for home.

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I continue south down the street past a guy who is using charcoal bricks to make ceramics. Another guy is selling what looks like salad on the back of a wagon, there must be hundreds of pounds of it piled high. At the front of the wagon a guy in a long shirt is trying to get the horse to move again. People are unloading fruit. Everybody’s talking and moving. Others are stacking boxes of what looks like a thousand loaves of bread. A woman in a hijab is wearing a sweatshirt with the words “dead inside” written on it. I pass a guy selling bananas and another guy just staring into space. People throw buckets of water in front of their shops to keep the dust down. Some sprinkle it, some splash it, a few of them use brooms to clean things up.

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As I walk, I think to myself, everywhere in the world, the guy who says hello my friend, is never your friend. I think about how that guy said his sister is at the shop. Why do conmen so often invoke a relative?

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On my way back, there he is, the conman, harassing more people in his white pants and ratty dinner jacket. I recognize them from the shop owned by the Mexican Egyptian. It is the British couple, the woman and the British Rastafarian boyfriend in dreadlocks. Now they are with the man in the suit jacket, all three are walking along towards me. He is all over them.

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I stop the woman and say, “That guy’s a conman, don’t go anywhere with him. A guy from my hotel just warned me about him.”

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“Well, he’s selling us hashish,” she says.

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I can see over her shoulder that he and the Englishman are having a heated discussion.

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I say, “good luck with that.”

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She nods as I continue on my way.

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*

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Close to the hotel I pass another souvenir shop. A guy sitting out front sees my baseball cap.

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“Hey what does the cap say?” he asks me, his English is nearly perfect.

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I like the cap, so I tell him, “It’s from the old Houston Oilers NFL team. They don’t exist anymore.”

 

“Oh,” he says, and stands up, walking over to me.

 

“I lived in San Francisco,” he says.

 

“Forty-niners country,” I say.

 

“Check it out,” he says, and shows me his California driver’s license.

 

“I was in the United States,” he says, “now I am back here, I got homesick. How do you like Egypt? People treating you okay?”

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“Except one guy out on the street, yes.”

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“What guy?” he says, “Show me the guy, I got cousins all over town, I know everybody, we’ll take care of it. Anyone bothers you, come to me.”

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He says, “I am gonna give you my business card,” and waves me into his shop.

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I am thinking, here we go with the business card shit again, but he is sitting there with his son, and seems alright to me. I step inside the shop, hands me a card and then he says, “Oh, and maybe you like a souvenir.”

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“I don’t want to buy anything,” I say.

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“But look at this papyrus we have here,” he says, “have a look around.”

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I say “Okay, okay, I got to go. Look you’re good at your job, but I am heading back to the hotel.”

 

“Okay,” he says and he shrugs and we laugh and shake hands

 

“How about the watch? How much is that watch on your wrist?”

 

I say, “it was about a hundred bucks.”

 

He says, “For a hundred bucks you can get this papyrus, a big papyrus!” and he points to the biggest ones and I stop him.

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“Man, you’re really good,” and now I am laughing, “because I just want to go home and yet still, here I am in this shop with you.”

 

He used my cap as a prop, his driver’s license, now my watch, and I am amused, but tired.

 

And he says, “Yes, but it is good right? Not pushy, right?”

 

I say, “Yes, you’ve got it down, like the whole thing with the watch, damn, you are really good at this.”

We are laughing.

 

“If I buy papyrus on this trip in Giza, it will be from you. But I gotta go,” and I just walk out. He follows me onto the

street where his teenaged son is still sitting in a plastic chair.

 

He shakes my hand again. They seem to love shaking hands in Cairo.

 

“You should tell your son to be as good as you,” I say.

 

He smiles.

 

“Seriously. Tell him right now, you’re like a doctor at this, you’re an expert, you’re smooth,” I say.

 

He translates and then his boy laughs, loud real laughter, and we all shake hands yet another time and I head down the street.

 

*

 

Then I pass the hotel where I got the coffee yesterday morning and the same man is there out front. This time he is wearing a long one-piece shirt, the kind you see in the Arab world, and it looks a little strange to see him in Egyptian clothes and not a dress shirt.

 

“Izayak,” he greets me.

 

“Alhamdullilah,” I say back.

 

He says “Habibi, Habibi, remember from yesterday?”

 

“Of course,” I say. “Coffee.”

 

“You’re always welcome here,” and he stands up and shakes my hand as I walk by.

 

*

 

I duck down the alley to my hotel. It is darker back here, and mostly unpaved. When a car drives across the sand its

headlights brighten everything for a moment, and it leaves fragile tire tracks. As I make the last corner to the hotel, I hear footsteps approaching. I turn to see the man with the business jacket and the white pants, the crazy man from the

street, the conman, the guy tried to sell hash to the British tourists. He is coming at me as fast as he can walk, shouting something like “Hey! What did you say about me?!?!”

 

He's loud and pissed off.

 

Did I ruin his drug deal?

 

It is all so unexpected, one second, I am walking along, the next second there he is, a maybe 20 feet away, closing the distance. In a flash I think, do I front kick him? Elbow? Leg kick? Just put my hands up and tell him I don’t want any trouble?

 

This guy is at least in his mid-forties. He is maybe 5’9” and over 200 pounds, a lot heavier than me, but out of shape and likely untrained. The odds are with me.

 

But what if I knock him down and he gets seriously hurt? What if he’s friends with the police? What if he has a knife? I’ve got nothing to prove here. So, I do the best move you can ever do in a fight. I don’t get into one. Without saying a word I duck into the hotel, a few steps away.

 

As soon as I step inside, I turn to face the doors. Without thinking, my hands are up and I am in fighting stance. I am ready. Half a minute goes by, but he doesn’t come in.

 

The two guys behind the desk look at me, puzzled. They are both in their early twenties, one of them has a beard.

 

“There’s some crazy guy in the alley,” I tell the clerks, “I think he wants to fight me.”

 

“Where,” the bearded one says.

 

“Right out there,” I point out the door.

 

“When?”

 

“Now.”

 

They both look into the security camera. It looks like they don’t see anything.

 

They come from behind the desk, and all three of us head out to the alley. They have amused looks on their faces, as we step out into the night. This quickly there is an us and a them, and whoever it is, we’re against them. The alley by the door is empty, so we keep walking. I’m careful not to be too close to the next corner as I round it, but the guy is nowhere to be seen.

 

When we head back inside, the bearded kid says, “When you go back into town, one of us will go with you. OK?”

 

*

 

Back in the room, I am washing my hands to get ready to go get something to eat. My advice to the British tourists must have derailed that hash deal. I’ll bet he shaded me down the street, waiting for me to duck off the main drag, because there are police all over the place. My situational awareness is not what I thought it was. I never saw him. I don’t know if he wanted to try to get violent, but he was at least going to yell at me and give me a piece of his mind. Standing at the sink, my hands running under the water, I can see him again. White pants, business jacket. Missing teeth.

 

*

 

When it is time to eat, one of the two clerks behind the desk goes with me.

 

I practice my Arabic again, and we make introductions. His name is Islam. He is about 22 years old, and as small as me, and walks with me to the Restaurant Pyramids to order food to go.

 

He says in English, “This is an adventure.”

 

As we head out into the alley, it’s lighter than I remember, more brightly lit. There aren’t any people until we round the second corner. No guy in white pants with a dinner jacket. Then I look through the crowds on the street. He’s nowhere to be found. We place a to go order for a mixed grill at the restaurant. While we wait, we talk about crazy people, Giza, his family, where he likes to go in Egypt, and scuba diving. I practice Arabic phrases with him.

 

I saw cops on the way into the restaurant, sitting at a police post maybe 50 yards down the street. I decide to go tell them about the crazy guy. I am loathe to approach police in the developing world, it can go sideways quickly, but I’ve heard that Egypt’s tourist police mean business. Near a small out building, two guys with mustaches sitting in plastic chairs watch the world pass by. One is in uniform, and the other is dressed like a businessman. After introducing myself in Arabic, I assume the guy in the suit is in charge. I talk with him in English, he seems to be taking mental notes of the description, but I don’t think he understands half of it.

 

“I am no police,” he says, “he is,” and he points to the guy next to him.

 

After an uncomfortably long pause the guy in uniform says, “Do you see him?”

 

He points up and down the street.

 

“No,” I say.

 

These guys don’t seem to care too much either way. But as they are talking a young cop, just a kid in fatigues, walks up

to see what’s going on. He looks like he just grew his mustache last weekend and he’s ready to rock, complete with tactical boots and an assault rifle.

 

They brief him.

 

“Where is the guy? Which guy?” he is saying in Arabic, looking around.

 

He’s ready to trample some civil rights, or aim that rifle at someone and tell them to get down on the ground. The other two say something like there is nothing they can do if they don’t see the guy, but they’ll watch out for him. More hands shakes and I walk back to the restaurant where Islam is still waiting on my mixed grill. Any interaction with the Egyptian police that’s a wash is a victory.

 

*

 

On our walk back to the hotel, Islam can’t stop laughing when he learns that I coach people how to fight. When we get back to the lobby, he and I take pictures together in a fight pose. Then I head up to my room to eat my mixed grill, two kids from Giza between me and any street tough who wants to throw down.