Painted Cities by Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski

pulling up large flopping fish, only to lose them as they tried to carry them away.
    DAMASCUS
     
    “I n Damascus they wear long robes. In Damascus they have white, pointy beards and they all look like the guy from Hills Bros. drinking a big cup of coffee.
    “In Damascus they cut off your hand if you steal something. They blind you if you look at another man’s wife. They cut out your tongue if you tell a lie.
    “In Damascus there are people with milky gray eyes who can see into the future, and you can sit by them in the marketplace duringyour lunch break and ask what crimes you will commit.
    “In Damascus the fortune-tellers are walled in by carpets, tall, bright carpets that vendors hang on high rods. Everywhere you turn there is a wall of carpet, and it makes you think of flying carpets, like you can pull one down, start it up, and fly away.
    “In Damascus the women hide their beauty. If they are married, they wear long black sheets; if they are engaged, they wear light blue; and if they are neither married nor engaged, if they are old maids, they just wear plain white. You never see their faces in Damascus. In Damascus the only things you see on women are their eyes, dark and Chinese-looking, and this is what men fall in love with, eyes. See, this is how Damascus is different.
    “And they have camels. In Damascus they have many, many camels. And the camels crowd the marketplace, chewing their gums like old men, like Willy who sells the newspapers on Leavitt Street. And they smoke, oh do they smoke—the people, not the camels—they smoke night and day, like crazy. At any time you can smell the cigarettes, burning, rich and powerful, like a fog, sweet and damp. And they sit in their doorways, the people. They sit beneath their arched doorways that lead into their deep, dark apartments, and they smoke, exhaling thick exhaust into the tiny, twisted streets.
    “In Damascus, when the sun goes down, all you see are shadows. Those buildings with the arched doorways, those that are built tight into each other, those buildings that form the streets, twisting and turning—at night, in Damascus, those buildings become lit from the inside, and crescent-moon-shaped windows, star-shaped windows, cast patterns on the white walls of the buildings across the way. In Damascus at night, no one speaks, and if anyone walks, his footstepscan be heard echoing down the corridors of street, scraping and shuffling. And the streets are so narrow that someone walking miles away can be heard just as clear as someone right around the corner.
    “See, this is how it is in Damascus. I know. I have been there.”
    SNAKE DANCE
     
    P apo stepped to the DJ. He cocked his arm. He had that flair in his eyes. The same flair I had seen hundreds of times when Papo was drunk and he was about to kick someone’s ass. I held Papo back. I don’t know where I had him, maybe I just pushed back on his chest. I could feel Papo’s arms—that’s it, I had him by one arm. When I pushed back I had his biceps in my hand, in my palm, his long, thin biceps, like Bruce Lee’s biceps, defined, like the contours of the fenders he Bondoed together when we crashed our cars. Papo was a mechanic.
    “What are you, a fucking Indian?” Papo said over my shoulder. I took a quick glance behind me, at the DJ, hoping he wouldn’t say anything back. I’d analyzed the situation. I’d anticipated everything. When the DJ showed up, I took a look at him, judged him: Goatee, a little chubby, doesn’t look like he’d start a fight, doesn’t look like he’d back down. He won’t get drunk . I looked at the DJ again, there, later, made eye contact with him, right after Papo asked him if he was a fucking Indian . I saw a smile, a placating smile, a back-down smile, an “I don’t want any trouble” smile, a “But why do you think I’m an Indian?” smile. I wondered the same thing. Where did Papo get that?
    “It’s all right, Papo,” I told him.
    “But he’s not doing