on the street where I live

Beirut has cooled down a bit. The sun still rises high and bright each day but the mornings and nights have calmed to a liveable degree. I no longer turn on my air conditioner at night, for the window offers enough of a breeze for the room to stay cool. And with the window open, I can hear the people that the many shades and shutters covering any opening to our apartment hide.

My apartement is on the top floor of a very old building at the center of several other old buildings full of old people and surrounded by old cars. And if I go up to our roof to take in the chilled night air, I never stay longer than a moment for fear that I have an audience.

But with my bedroom window open and the curtain drawn, I am safe. I am free from the eyes that pry and yet still a part of the scene in which I find myself. I have learned to identify the sounds of my neighborhood at night. And in some ways, I feel more a part of it.

My apartment is at the end of a very long block just wide enough for one car. And though I walk up and down this block sometimes three or four times a day, until the air cooled I never noticed it. I never took note of its characters and eccentricities when I was distracted by the oppressive heat of summer. But now I see. And my block has character damnit.

Just before turning right onto my street, there is an old old building with cracks and discolorations galore. And though the old building is not to blame, there is a smell. From 100 feet away, the smell of fishiness surges at me as I walk home from the store, from a night out or from work. The smell comes from a man who sits on the side walk in front of that old old building. He sits lazily next to a plank of wood on top of a crate and on that plank he sells the smallest oysters and sea urchin I have ever seen. And though the seafood itself does not look terribly appealing, it is accompanied by a pile of fresh lemons and everytime I pass, I want to try just one bite. But every time, the anticipation of the gastronomical fireworks that will inevitably ensue stops me. Someday, when I have no weekend plans nor lingering colds to hinder my immune system I will try one. And even if that familiar feeling of being wrung like a rag from the inside out finds me, it will come with the pride of trying something new.

Yet unconquered fears behind me, ten feet after I pass the oyster man, the smell magically disappears and I turn the corner onto my block with faint anxiety. For this block has a population, a standing group of inhabitants who probably know my comings and goings better than I do.

On my right I pass two identical supermarkets (I only go to the first one though I have no idea why) and then the fruit stand. Though originally excited about the existence of such an establishment just outside my apartment, I must admit that seeing the cauliflower delivered on Monday mold and rot and still be offered up for sale on Friday, does not encourage me to stray from grocery store produce.

After the fruit stand and its contingent of three teenagers sitting on plastic chairs accross the street, I pass a pile of rubble. Not a completely uncommon site in the land of unfinished construction projects, this particlar mass of cement and twisted metal is close to my heart because it was made during my tenure on the block it calls home. One morning I went to a coffee shop for a cappuccino and a sandwich and when I came back, the building had been clawed to ground as if Clifford the Big Red Dog had playfully pounced on it, not knowing that it had been built before the first World War. When I saw it I felt strange. Moving to a new country is hard enough without changes of seemingly stationary scenery. If change is that quick, I may one day have trouble finding my apartment.

After the pile of rubble comes the peanut gallery: my theatre in the round. I know I am approaching this, the end of my block because of the sharp slapping sound of plastic on wood.

The slapping comes from the center of a circle of six old men all quietly observing a violent game of backgammon in their white tanks tops and dress pants: a uniform that is apparently acceptable and appropriate for a myriad of occasions.

If the game is tense enough, they may not even turn. But most days they do as i curse the soles of my shoes for announcing my coming with their clacking. Most days they turn and grumble to each other about what I am carrying or the time of my return if it is unusual. Neither them nor I seems willing to make the first address so they grumble and I fix my gaze on a point in front of me just waiting to be rid of this sudden bout of attention.

At the end of the block, I hike up the four flights of stairs to my apartment and I am safely anonymous once again. I comfortably consider myself forgotten.

When I lay down to sleep at night, the slapping of the backgammon pieces has stopped and the teenagers sitting in their plastic chairs have gone inside. But with the faintly soaring melodies of Arabic music videos and slamming car doors of late night party-ers all around me, I realize that for the men in the white tank tops, I am as much a part of their day as they are of mine. It still gets me almost every time . . . but, I live here too.