Yusuf en fuego

I'm doing my best to just let this blog die of sheer lethargy, but Yusuf simply will not allow it. His behavior these past two weekends has been absolutely scintillating. I don't really know how to pull it all together, so I'm just gonna throw it all out there so you can be as baffled and smitten as I am. If you can make it to the end, there's a special treat!

Last week:

" When I am in the bed, it must be woman, man, woman," Yusuf says grandiloquently, miming a sandwich. "I cannot go to be with one woman. Only three, four, five!" I honestly can't say how her arrived at this proclamation.

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In keeping with my postcolonially ambiguous attempts to teach Yusuf all the tones and chords of guitar history, I ask him if he knows about the blues.

"Oh, the blues??," he says loudly, like I'm talking about apples, or a car or a dog. "Of course!," He says emphatically, his French accent peeking its head out. "Of course!" It' s one of his favorite things to say.

Then, unexpectedly, he puts one hand up as if he's taking an oath, the other on his belly, closes his eyes and sways to and fro.

I raise my eyebrows at him just a little like he's crazy, which he is, but he's got an explanation.
"The blues, man, the blues!" He's saying it like "bloose"
"In French, the blues is like the close dancing with the women!"
He again mimes the beginnings of a dance, which this time grows progressively more sensual over time, full of rhythm and undulations.

"Belly to belly. Dick to dick," he says matter-of-factly. (1000% percent sic)

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For the past two weeks, he has been absolutely rocking a jean jacket unlike anything I've ever seen. Well, that's not exactly right. It's just like jackets I see every day. Basically, it's a pea-coat/petty-coat/New-York-coat, except it's jean. Last weekend, he paired it nicely with jeans, but he must not have wanted the look to get stale because he scaled back to more conservative slacks tonight. (Update: My younger, fashion-savvy brother informs me this jean-on bottom/jean-on-top look is called a Canadian Tuxedo)

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Tonight: GWNTSLACD, whose partial redemption in my eyes has been a major development in recent weeks and is TBP, is leaving as I come on for my shift. Yusuf kisses her delicately on each cheek, then genially motions at his genitals that she should return the favor.

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Whenever he's been getting excited, he's been interrupting and interspersing his speech with this stream of animated gibberish. It sounds something like, "Halal alal alahal ahalala!" I'm not sure if its Muslim celebratory banter or a bad imitation of this man.

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His young daughter has called from home two or three times. Her name is Saran, pronounced more haughtily than "saran" wrap. We have been talking, and she honestly has the cutest voice that I have ever heard. The third time she called, she asked if she could speak to her dad, and I said, "Why don't you want to speak to me?" and she giggled. Oh. My. God. It was like the giggle of the first fairy or something. I said that we were friends, right?, and she confirmed that her dad had shown her my picture (Yusuf is into cameras), and that we were indeed friends. Hands down the most unadulterated moment of goodness I've had at this job.

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Last week, Yusuf, showing off the fancy new camera he had just gotten, casually mentioned that he had an older camera that was only missing a charger that he would give to me. I protested that that was crazy for about an hour, but he wouldn't take no for an answer.

To be quite honest, I kind of thought that his promises to give me the camera lay in the same vicinity as his tendency to agree with almost everything I say. To make me feel good, he'd pledge to bring me this camera, and then, every weekend, he'd leave it at home, or i wouldn't remind him, and he'd give it to me next weekend.

But he gave me the camera. He just pulled it out of his bag, just like that, no flash, no presentation, and handed it over. I thanked him, and thanked him profusely, and over the course of the evening I tried, a number of times, to pause for a moment and thank him again. But he stoically assured me, every time, that it was no big deal. At one point, I clapped him on the shoulder and waited for him to look me in the eye so I could really truly thank him, but he wouldn't look at me.

As he left for the day at three this morning, I called out to him. "Hey Yu," I said simply, "Thanks for the camera."

He smiled a little. "You my buddy," he shrugged.


YUSUF!