Dubai

         I sit down at the last available table in the square and unwrap my cheesesteak. It’s scalding hot so after taking a few cautious nibbles I let it sit to cool off. A Black man about my age approaches.

        “Are you going to buy me one of those?” he asks. I smile and say no and start to eat. He stands there watching. Finally I tear off a hunk and wrap it in foil and hand it to him. “I have cash, you think I don’t have cash,” he says, pulling a roll of bills from his jeans pocket. “I have plenty of cash. I don’t need cash.” I tell him I don’t want his money. He pulls up a chair and sits across from me with the sandwich in front of him.

        “Do you play tennis, handball?” he asks. I say no. “Do you go to Portland State?” Again, I tell him no, and ask if he does. “I did thirty years ago,” he says. I ask him what he majored in and he asks, “Have you ever been to Dubai?” I tell him no, and ask if he has. “Of course I have,” he says, sounding offended. “Where are you from?” he asks. I tell him Philly, which is what I tell everyone when I don’t want to explain aboutAllentown. I ask him where he’s from.

        “Hartford, Connecticut,” he says proudly. “My parents had the largest furniture outlet in San Francisco, and Seattle. Shit fuck. You look like you’ve never been to San Francisco or Seattle.”

        I laugh. “Why does it look like that?”

        “These are high class places. High class food. You sit there sucking down that Coke. You look like you work for Gates or Intel. Sucking down that Coke. Tell me, do you play tennis, handball?”

        He speaks calmly and deliberately but teeth are clenched and his eyes seem to burn with rage. I tell him I don’t play any sports.

        “Or course you don't. You don't do anything. You look to me like you’re about fifty,” he says. I tell him he’s right. “I’m 47,” he says. “Today is my birthday.”

        “Happy birthday,” I say, hoping this lightens things a bit. 

        “How dare you,” he says. “You don’t tell someone happy birthday until they’re in the ground. Shit fuck.”

        I’m not sure what this means but he sounds deeply offended. He swivels his neck to watch someone walking past.

        “That girl looks like she’s from Dubai,” he says. “Have you been to Dubai?” Once again, I say no. “You haven’t been anywhere, have you. Shit fuck. Where are you from?” Once again I tell him, and ask if he’s ever been there.

        “Of course I have. Shit fuck. Philly. Rutgers. And you’ve never been to Seattle.” He looks over at the a rather svelte man with a beard sitting at the next table. “You look like you’re around 280, 270 pounds,” he yells to him. Both the bearded man and I laugh. 

        “Ouch,” the bearded guy says. 

        My companion turns back to me. “Sucking down that Coke,” he says with gritted teeth. “You go to Portland State? These Oregonians picking up after their dogs and taking their kids for walks at two in the morning. These people are soft. Fuck.”

        I tell him if he doesn’t want his sandwich, that I’ll eat it.

        “I’ll give it to someone,” he says. He calls to a man with a cart heaped with bags and hands it to him.

          “Shit fuck. You and your Coke and your chicken wings. But tell me one thing,” he asks. “Do you play tennis, handball?”

        I wad up my napkins and empty foil and stand up. 

        "Well, I'm heading out. Have a good day," I say.

        “Why wouldn’t I have a good day, motherfucker,” he says. “It’s my birthday,” and wanders off. 

        The man at the next table smiles and says, “Welcome to Portland.”

        “I’ve lived here eighteen years,” I tell him. 

        “Oh, so you know,” he says. 

        The man with the cart is rummaging through a garbage bin. I ask if he wants my empty can. He thanks me and I hand it to him along with five bucks then weave my way through the crowd, trying to get my bearings, trying to make sense of anything.

Oasis

 It's the first day of Spring and I'm already in a foul mood as I walk to work in the morning. On the side of the Plaid Pantry, someone has written CASTS THEIR HERPES in large block letters. I have no idea what the hell it means, and if I was feeling better maybe I'd find such a Dada-esque non-sequitur amusing, but as it is, I'm irritated by it. I'm so sick of all the bullshit, the chaos, the random idiocy of everyday life. I want life to make sense. I long for order, for at least the illusion of meaningfulness. I yearn to feel like I possess some understanding of how other people think and behave. Instead those humans laugh and mock me with  CASTS THEIR HERPES before I've even had my morning coffee. Maybe it's a private joke or code. Maybe it's some pop cuture reference I'm just not getting. Maybe someone will read it and smile and nod knowingly. Or maybe it's meaningless garbage and any attempt to communicate with humans is a sad joke and anyone who thinks otherwise is a sucker. On the way home I pass the wall again and realize that it doesn't read CASTS THEIR HERPES at all. It actually reads OASIS THER HERPES, which somehow makes even less sense. The one thing that remains consistent is the herpes, which seems appropriate. I cannot  fucking wait to return to my home planet. 

Nairobi

        You know what they say about nature abhoring a vacuum. Now that things with my foot are stabilized, another worry needs to fill the vacancy. I spin the wheel and it lands on my old standby: soul-crushing loneliness. In a way, my physical issues are easier to deal with than the emotional ones. I have trouble with the foot, I get it worked on, I stay off it, it gets better. There's not a corresponding treatment plan for loneliness. I've been alone for too long, and I'm starting to feel like I always will be. Another old chestnut is that you become invisible when you turn forty... well, I'm going to be fifty this year, and nearly a decade of invisibility has taken its toll. When years pass without so so much as a peck on the cheek, without a single touch or even a flirtatious glance or remark, you start to feel like you're withering away.

        I finally give in and try online dating again. The only messages I get are from women halfway across the world. Sometimes the Philippines, occasionally Romania, but almost always Nairobi. They're not from anywhere else in Africa or even other cities in Kenya. Just Nairobi. Not a single real, local person shows any interest in me, or responds to my messages.

        I know I shouldn't let it bother me, but it does, and by Saturday night I'm pretty miserable. I go out for a beer and the only people at the bar are couples. I go to bed early, passing out not from drinking but from a complete unwillingness to stay awake even another half hour. 

          I drag myself to work the next morning morning, feeling both heavy and hollow at the same time. During my morning patrol, the woman in the control room calls to say there's a fire at the camp behind the museum. "It's big," she says, sounding panicky. I grab a fire extinguisher and hurry outside.

        The fire is, indeed, big. One of the inhabitants of the camp apparently threw all their belongings in a heap and set it ablaze and fled. His partner, an older woman, is sitting placidly next to it on a bucket. I ask if she's okay and she smiles and says something I can't make out.

        I've never used a fire extinguisher in my life, but I pull the pin and aim the nozzle at the conflagration and squeeze the grip and a plume of white retardant whooshes out, putting out most of the flames in seconds. Smoke billows from the pile; I try to step out of its path but it seems drawn to me. With a few more blasts I kill the remains of the fire and stomp on some stray handfuls of smoldering newspaper.

        The woman has not moved from her bucket this entire time. I chat with her a bit. "At least that'll take care of the bugs," she says, as the sound of sirens rises from around the corner.

          When I get home that night I see that I've gotten seventeen more messages from Nairobi and one from Thailand. My clothes still smell of smoke.  I close my account.