WESLEY-RUGGLES-LIVE-FROM-JURASSIC-SUBURBIA

-A-RARE-CASE-OF-A-MAN-WHO-REPORTS-THE-NEWS-FROM-THE-BATTLE-ZONE-GETS-HIT-BY-SNIPERS- BLEEDS-TO-DEATH-AND-SHOWS-UP-ON-THE-NEXT-RANDOM-LOCATION-IN-BEIRUT-1986-

VOL 1

-A SHORT STORY-

TALAL CHAMI

Palestinian fighters In Beirut, Lebanon, 1982

©

Stonie wore a Machiavellian smile and fashioned a Cobra Shades just like the ones Stallone wore as Marion Cobretti in Cobra, 1986.  The truth of the matter is this guy looked more like a train-ticket conductor or inspector with a twist, for all I know. He looked like a mutant gorilla on the run.  And not even close to what a member of an elite division called Zombie Squad looked like. A truc macabre.  After a moment, he panned his head appearing entirely as a more recent version of the black drummer in Youtube Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine, with a grin. He looked up from his tiny, half-open, smoke-twirling-window and said: Hello Mr. Ruggles, am Stonie.  Welcome to Lebanon. The Switzerland of the East. Wesley Ruggles – was an accomplished and prominent American photojournalist.  He got in the back seat of the white Peugeot 504 and smiled all the way to the Commodore Hotel in Hamra. Stonie looked at his customer adjusting himself in the back seat, as he got in, on the rear-view mirror and said: Our country is the best place if you wish to take on the challenge of surfing and skiing on the same day. There’s no particular way to do it – some prefer to hit the waves early in the morning and end the day with a cup of mulled wine after a great ski or snowboard session; others prefer to hit the slopes in the morning and watch the sunset from Ain El Mraisse on West End, after catching some waves. It’s really up to you, Mr. Ruggles. You decide.  I leave it up to you. Wesley Ruggles grinned.  He wasn’t much of a talker, if you know what I mean.  He nodded affirmatively to all the words Stonie shot at him.  Lester Young Stardust – 1952 was coming out of the radio. Soft and easy. Let me tell ya a story.  Stonie said:  Two families were arguing in a field about where the boundary between their lands lay.  The dispute dated back a long time and blood had been shed a number of times.  A boy, a child of some eight or nine years, picked up a stick and drew a line in the earth.  When asked what he was doing, he said he was marking the boundary as it had been agreed at the last round of negotiation, long before he was born.  His father asked him how he knew this, and the boy replied that he was the reincarnation of a man the father had killed in the feud.  When the child revealed details of the shooting that only the dead man and his killer could have known, his father embraced his former adversary who was now his son. Both families wanted the feud to end.  It had been costly in terms of lives, and all were seeking a way out of a resumption of hostilities.  After a long drive and a prolonged silence, Wesley Ruggles said: Take to me to the Green Line. Now.  Militias around West Beirut were a spectacle not to be missed.  A daily-affair. They rode Jeeps as if they were riding horses. Ski-nautique, once heard someone say. Their rituals comprised life as it happened on the eve of the end of the world. For all I know.  Ruggles was a modern-times Dziga Vertov, with a movie camera.  He was a prompt man.  Never late to a meeting or a date and had a subtle way of complaining to chefs about mediocre meals at restaurants. He was an homme d’affaires. He was a lean, mean fighting-machine that would not have anything be used to his disadvantage.  And for some unknown reason always wore black.  From head to bottom. No matter what. He was a distinctive soul with an Italian flare. A lady’s man. No doubt about it.  The Lebanese Rambo –or the subject of his piece, was in place in the smashed part of the city.  Surely on the demarcation line in Down Town. Pre-disposed and ready.  He was a robust, broad-shouldered and extremely serious fella. A War-Junkie. A visual spectacle par excellence, so to speak.  A local hero of sorts.  A Stallone-look-a-like, whose physical transformation was evident and clear indication that Post-Vietnam American War films and more specifically Rambo films of the 1980s, made a huge impression on him, to the extent he -and possibly others, eventually transmuted into Rambo himself. That prompted folks like Wesley Ruggles and others to come to Beirut to have a closer look. A truc macabre. The truth of the matter is the local Rambo did not like or fancy Rambo.  He became Rambo: The man himself.  A rare case of a man who becomes another.  A copy of an original, so to speak -who is eventually rejected! Wesley Ruggles told the local Rambo to look away as he took pictures of him. The others did just the same. But these two worked as an ensemble-together:  A photo session followed by a video session.  The whole spectacle ensued in a surreal war-inspired open-air studio, in the heart of the city. A war-triggered art installation under the piercing sun for hours: The local Rambo loved to be photographed and Ruggles, well, yeah consequently, loved to be the producer of the images. A love-affair of sort. Zeina Salem –A gorgeous-looking local news producer –they all look gorgeous at the times- stood near-by.  She took some photos of her own. There is something arrogant about him. She thought. Ruggles spent hours with his subjects. He was a war-junkie himself. Up until February 6, 1984 greater Beirut was under the control of the government. On that day, the Lebanese army was forced to withdraw from the West side of the city, which again came under the control of militias and political groups opposed to the government.  The truth of the matter is that these men in the framework of war seemed wired to invade and conquer with glory being the primary objective. The key takeaway is that none of these displays bear any significance if there is no audience to play to. Some folks stood by. Some others from a far stared and marveled.  The Lebanese Rambo had this funny approach: Rambo fights in the films, I, on the other hand, am real.  I drove my Rover with my two dazzling companions:  Zeina Salem by my side and well, yeah Paul Desmond and his Quartet-1954 coming out of the radio.  Soft and easy. The meeting with Ruggles was set at the demarcation line just for kicks.  Part of the war-thrill encounters he was after.  We compromised. I still remember the first time I met Wesley Ruggles. He gave the impression he was a temperamental actor having to do retakes.  Non-stop. But Rambo was not the real reason for Ruggles to fly down here. Rambo was inconsequential.  A slight- story.  Wesley Ruggles was in Beirut for completely different reasons: The Plugged-Sniper of Beirut. Random boys stood-still as a lady-photographer took some pictures of a random Palestinian commander who sat between two low-ranking officers close-by. Sit-still! She said -as she released her film camera’s release button.  They all look like ancillaries. The main character was wearing black shades. A la Marion Cobretti.  And a black beret crowned his head, which provided him with immediate identifying qualities, in addition to his physical position in relation to the others which emphasized his authority.  His face seemed expressionless due to various props it displayed. Masculinized by his obvious mustache.  A gendering-trope.  We had Peaches, prosciutto, burrata, mint, pistachios with honey and white balsamic vinegar drizzle on top with white wine all afternoon.  Zeina Salem said “The commander looks older than the back-standing militiamen.  They are all in uniform in a near-battle field/zone position.  They are dressed for war. But not enacting it.  They look masculine and yet the kitten adds that softness touch to Brando’s character in this specific re-interpretation which is by no means intended.” She paused for a second and then resumed “I have the perception that the producer of the image herself did not know whether the commander was trying to imitate “The Godfather” character or not.”  The focal point of the mise-en-scene was a white kitten the commander held with his right hand, which he didn’t seem to care for.  He held it with cool passiveness.  The photographer was able to frame the kitten occupying a lower position.  His bodyguard stood on both sides: The one who stood to his right looked away. Showing disinterest or confusion.  He carried a machine-gun pointing upward.  He wore a military uniform with magazine holders strapped all around him.  His flexed right arm differed from the left arm that rested by his standing body.  On the opposite left side of the commander, there sat another militiaman who gazed straight at him.  He was more interested it seems on the commander’s next act than on the photographer’s consequent actions. I thought to myself.  The cat in hand was very significant.  The way the main combatant held the kitten was domineering, almost like a chokehold, a threat. This served the purpose of making him seem uncaring and hardened by the war. A power move that was even more amplified by the presence of his goons at his sides. Then I thought: He appears to be copying Marlon Brando’s opening scene in Godfather, 1972. A truc macabre.  Zeina Salem was a ravishing Capricorn -unleashed.  I was entangled immediately.  I tried to keep up with her interpretation and responded in kind: “The house in the background reflects the living conditions of its inhabitants.  If any, at all.  It is a relaxed moment. I think.   A break from the exhaustive instants of combat.  They are all facing the camera somehow.  The commander is surrounded by his guards. They look at him or the people around him for security reasons.  The commander’s unintentional pursuit of conflating his military might with that of a mafia boss is evident.  He pretends to demystify him somehow by acting out a “real” version of a representational power.” After a long silence, she looked at me and said: “Rumor has it that the cat held by Brando, in the opening scene of Godfather was a stray, the actor found while on the lot at Paramount, and was not originally called for in the script.  So content was the cat, that its purring muffled some of Brando’s dialogue, and, as a result, most of his lines had to be looped.” We both sniggered and had a toast. To tell you the truth, the Palestinian commander, being the main mantelpiece of this scene, deserves more attention.  His face is cold and gives nothing away which is mostly attributed to his dark tinted glasses. As the eyes are the windows to the soul, this accessory is a very strategic affront on the mere possibility of conveying emotion. This skipper has taken all of the precautions to shield himself from being perceived as anything but masculine. He is a lean, mean fighting-machine that will not have anything be used to his disadvantage. The truth of the matter is that the three-armed war veterans whose placements clearly exemplify the power dynamics at play, looked invincible. The one in the center is decidedly the head of the group surrounded by two subordinate officers who, while authoritative, rank lower than him or at least submit to him. One is looking vacantly into the far left of the camera in slight amusement. The other henchman is seated on the bottom right of the frame looking directly at the head of the leader as if awaiting his signal, his every beck and call. The hierarchy is very blatant here. Zeina said: “These images remind me of Nick Ut’s “Accidental Napalm” photograph as the defining image of the Vietnam War because that little girl will not go away, despite many attempts at forgetting. War photographs are frozen moments in war-time. I freeze what I see.  It’s not what you see.  It’s what I see.  It’s my truth.  It’s not the truth.  It’s my eye.  It’s the way I saw it with a specific lens, with a specific light.  You wouldn’t have seen it the same way.” The Vietnam war ended in the same month, the Lebanese Civil war had started.  A clear dissolve. Beirut, once a hide-out, where coup d’états, political assaults, espionage and even felony could be planned, where financial deals, bank transactions, and international trade could be brokered, was alas! a ravaged city. Disfigured and ultimately forsaken. During a shelling of the town, an almost wasted, Wesley Ruggles raised a glass of Bordeaux and said: “You’re Lebanese? You’re lucky! You have a war, you have something to live for! We have nothing back home.” I think that hadn’t we had a war; we would have died slowly. War had renewed us. The war sound kept coming in and out of my head, and a couple was still fucking inside a tiny yellow Fiat not far away from where I was standing.  A mechanical undertaking.  Not much emotion/commotion at play except for their intense sexual collaboration.  A deliberate, indecent exposure.   It did not take me long to realize that angels were standing in cue at the entrance of a crumbling city: Dilapidated and decrepit. Partly broken, partly rotten, and partly forgotten. For years, I was a war junkie in Beirut.  Out of nowhere, a crowded jeep of militiamen stopped and disembarked.  They all looked like Knights subpoenaed by the monarch who was pissed and drunk and tired. For a moment, they all looked irritated and pissed off. A sort of a fashion insignia they all displayed just for kicks. A war-affair. Hip and ceremonial. Then, they began to disperse along the sidewalk in zigzag, with machine guns and RPGs pointing upward.  Their beards, long and unpleasant, pointing downward.  And their self-esteem half-way in between. They all came for the cut.  The King’s cut. The truth of the matter is the King Salon was the hippest place in town. A classic spot. A royal den.  The cosmopolitan centre of Beirut. So, to speak.  Everybody was there.  A meeting place for spies, including Kim Philby and Archie Roosevelt, and CIA men such as Miles Copeland as well as journalists of the caliber of John Chancellor and Sulzberger. Numerous diplomats and politicians, business tycoons and oil Sheikhs, they all mixed with oil and banking tycoons of the day molding the clientele of this classic establishment.  A royal place.  During the 50’s and even early 70’s the plots, the deals, and the stories that came out of this famous barbershop in Beirut were gripping. Plots and counter-plots, stretching over a quarter of a century echoed and re-echoed inside, every time.   Rumor has it, many incidents which helped to shape and re-shape Middle Eastern history are associated with the Salon: The attempt to overthrow King Hussein of Jordan, for instance. It was partially destroyed in the Two-Year war, but it was totally re-erected and managed to preserve its heyday reputation for a while.   I used to come here when I was little.  My dad was a big fan of this room.  He used to call it his part-time office. A place to chill. A room where you could conduct business as usual without the hassle of the real workplace. A place you didn’t call a café for prestige and yet it was almost one. The tea they served was splendid and kingly. And ladies used to stay out on the sidewalk just for thrills, with the hope to catch heartthrobs on the loose. I went out with a new hair-cut. The King’s cut. I was the King’s Knight for the night.  I kick-started my bike and cruised for a while. A poet on tour.  Roaming the city.  Looking for a one-night stand. Or at least what appears to be.  I saw a solitary figure standing on a random spot.  A black woman with an Afro.  It was perfect.  She jumped me on the highway the time it took me to give her a ride home.  A truc macabre. I pressed the number nine inside the elevator of my apartment building.  I was tired and wired. As the elevator began to go up it suddenly stopped.  I was alone. And forgotten for a while.  Dangling by a cord. Forsaken.  Maybe.  I masturwaited the hour. Power was restored and I made it to my apartment safely. Minutes later the phone rang.  It was her.  She said: Baby, are you craving me tonight.  The next thing I know I have couple of Lesbians over slurping my bacon bazooka just for kicks. A royal act. Worthy of enjoyment with what I called decent music: I used to play Stevie Wonder’s Superstition really loud on my Marshall speakers in decay. A ritual of old fun-days when I was young, full of sperms, and needs and itches. The funny part –though, is that I always experienced something peculiar in that very moment. Hard to explain and yet I saw the trailer of my own life lived, projected on the facing wall.  I reminisced about past affairs and was transfixed by a lingering memory of a blow job as well as a highly visual fuck-climax. Vivid and highly pictorial.  Cheers! They both said. As they both poured all the wine content glittering in penumbra upon my bacon bazooka.  It looked like a copper fall unleashing. Unceasing. A truc macabre.   A royal act. Three was company.  Beirut was a junkyard of scrap metal and waste back then.  A place for sub-humans and android-machines on the run. BB 62 opened fire and hit some targets on the outskirts of the city. Rumors has it the bomb shells were all empty. As the American destroyer showered guerilla positions in Souk el Gharb, I was firing my own cannon all over the Lesbians scattered along enemy lines inside my dim room. A supreme act. A simultaneous-affair. Many years later, I had a similar experience when I was shagging this Pilipino –gurl- in a random hotel in Jounieh, just for kicks, while watching the final of the World Cup in 2010. I still remember cumming inside her mouth at the exact moment Iniesta was kicking the ball inside the Netherland finish line.  A glorious-victorious moment.  The Lesbians just loved the feeling of a revolver barrel inside them. A truc macabre. A regal tactic of enormous after-effect.  For some reason, they used to revere the freshly fired metal tube with both frame and cylinder inside. I stood there. Earnest and ceremonial in my act.  Viewing the trailer of my life on the facing wall of my dim room, and watching my bacon bazooka in constant spa-treatment mode. Graceful and yet unpretentious. The afternoon rushed in like a Belgian train in mid-voyage, that never made it on time. I dreamed of flatbread pizza, in the wasteland. Reminisced about my last, fast-paced failed love-affair and my futile attempt at piano lessons. We laughed, as we talked and killed the hours away. We imagined moments-to-be. Mostly naked. For some strange reason, they both loved to be touched on their forehead. A women-thing.  On their eye-brows to be exact.  The truth of the matter is that they both were willing to try new things –in private. My type of women.  Alone and crazy. A mind-type. Affectionate, and calm on the outside, and yet crazy and freaky on the inside. To tell you the truth I pretended I read more books than they both presumed I did. I wrestled with my own thoughts and delusions.  Concealed my deeper feelings and idiosyncrasies -in the midst of our talk. A Gemini-kind-of-thing.   I was after their strapless lid. What else do you expect: One of the few remaining standard activities in Dystopia.  I fucked them both for a while and I got kind of bored afterwards.  The truth of the matter is I completely lost interest in them.  Soon after, I found my next victim. A young, fresh psychology graduate with a healthy appetite for sex and a delightful fashion-style that managed to trigger my bacon bazooka, back. This next fuck-affair kept rolling for more than we both expected. She was the kind of girl who would do anything to satisfy you.  I acted in kind. I used a proactive approach with her, for as long as it lasted. She was worth the try: Worth every single sperm I spared on her lower and upper abdomen. And well, yeah often times on her breasts and her cute, funny face.  A truc macabre. She loved to be chased after -for sex. She loved BJs as much. And she used to brag about it in public.  A few weeks later, I found out she was sleeping with a couple of other guys from around the block, for subsistence. Good for her. She was a practical kid, with lots of love to spare. I lit my Jimmy and made some smoke rings with my mouth, for my own amusement, that is. She showered.  Poured herself a drink. Walked all the way to my bed, completely naked.  She, then, army-crawled my entire body without a word.  Once, fully up and facing me, she said with her typical intense voice: Impress me with your brains. I played a VHS tape I had borrowed from an old pal, of Greta Garbo’s Anna Karenina -1935- in decay. Well, yeah, to try to impress her with my cultural background and shit.  The perfect artefact for a late evening binge. A truc macabre. The glitches and hiccups of the shivering images of Greta Garbo on the TV screen, did not corrupt the actress’s royal flare. What a Dame! I thought. What an ass! I thought in sequence. As I took turns looking at both the screen and the new chick’s naked, flattened body shimmering in the dark, and glowing like a sea-urchin in the deep. And I thought to myself: They don’t make them like this anymore. Sublime and Heavenly. A Regal act. Of course, I was talking about the chick’s ass. What else. I mean, the truth of the matter is she was lying right before my own eyes to see: Face down with a few hours to spare. And I was hungry. Endlessly famished. I was after her strawless lid.  I crawled on the bed and once in position I sucked her strapless lid for hours. I grinned. Placed my half-consumed Jimmy on the Buddha-ashtray I had from my old days in Kamasutra-training in New Delhi. I decided to burn my bacon bazooka inside her fire place. We fucked the night away.  Like two little kids grounded in confinement.  Her spark was her climax. Unequal. Pristine and immaculate.  The e-streets below and around me were dim and vacant. Cold and bare. I took off.  Had to: I zigzagged my way to the Demarcation Line, past sandbags and burning silhouettes of e-cars, in falloff. A conspicuous tactic that I deployed every time to avoid unleashed android-snipers on the loose.  Whether someone or something conforms to customary patterns or deviates from them depends on one’s point of view: Behind the concepts of normality and abnormality is the assumption that there is a single standard by which to judge everything. What may be normal to one group, however, may be unacceptable to another. I had the same Walkman on, with the same headphones arching the same oval head I displayed for a thousand times at the frontline. A truc macabre. I played Monk Live in Paris 1964 every time.  Every day. Non-stop. It was more like a frontline pursuit for kicks. A Grotesque business. A reel replayed the same white 1979 Super-Beetle Cabriolet stopping right there in the middle of nowhere, over and over again.  A loop in one act.  Its occupiers looked like soul reapers with scythes, when out of a sudden, they revealed their hidden arms and fired in all directions. At the end of which, the white Beetle stood-still, in complete stillness. Technically, a malware. Once at the frontline, in total stillness, and in complete silence/quiet: I heard the remote air of a lullaby looping the same word stuck in reverse. I was surrounded by eccentric structures –which stood tall beholding my own state of incongruity. I stood almost mortified in the middle of the battleground, in silence.  Out of a thick, almost-mythical mist, a machine gun emerged and finally rested on my forehead. I stood-still.  Did not utter a word for an entire minute. A strange haze shrouded my eyesight. I still remember my counter-part’s brimmed-shape, white Panama hat, silk shirt, striped pants and his green suspenders. A distinctive act. He looked like a model taken out of a GQ magazine. I still remember when he looked at me for the last time and said: Learn how to cook and spend less.  Save time and have sex more often. The sound of my camera release bottom re-echoed in the stillness of that barren place, bouncing off the empty, worn-out, and shattered walls around me. On that crispy autumn day, and somewhere in town, The Red Prince carried a pistol holstered in brown leather and worn on his hip a la Clint Eastwood. He was a playboy alright, on his final rave. He was in a convoy of two Chevi station wagons heading from Georgina’s flat to his mother’s, for a birthday party. Chambers was on her balcony painting, and her red Beetle parked below on Rue Verdun.  As Salameh’s convoy passed that red wagon at 3:35 pm and turned onto Rue Madam Curie, a hundred Kilos of explosives attached to the car by a Mossad agent was remotely detonated either by Chambers herself or on her signal to another Mossad agent. They did not mistake him this time. A truc macabre.  The blast left Salameh conscious, but severely wounded and in great pain, having pieces of steel shrapnel embedded in his head and throughout his body.  He was rushed to The American University of Beirut Hospital, where he died on the operating table at 4:03 pm. Salameh’s four bodyguards and four bystanders were also killed, and at least 16 people were injured.  I was on the other end of town, with Mario Garcia having some Single malt whisky, in some random bar, surrounded by Frenchies at the moment of the blast.  The air turned purple and crowds rushed in to get the latest news from an old, dusty radio inside. You could feel the heat of the day in full armor. Hours later, I was sitting at my fav round table in the kitchen back at home when the telephone reechoed.  A voice –on the other end of the line said: I miss you, my baby. Shall I come over? I grinned.  I said: No.  I’m tired. We read countless pages of Gabo’s Hundred Years of Solitude, in Spanish, together, and ended up shagging a couple of times before going to bed.  We massacred solitude.  A masterful act. Luciana stayed way into the night.  She had a special homemade flatbread pizza formula for kicks, which she experimented with, when over. The fun part: I improvised most of the toppings from leftovers and a sauce I had on the side for the occasion. We had some slices of pizza, with red wine. I concede she did all the maintenance required and left before sunrise. A ballerina in her finest hour. Next morning, I drove my e-Rover to the frontline -like a student in love, on his second day of school.  Out of nowhere, A fighter pointed his machine gun to my temple, and said: Do not move. That day, I met Mario Garcia on the frontline. He came with cash to burn – a fleet of airplanes and a keen eye for French-speaking ladies. He had a crowd of bodyguards with him, just for kicks.  A business man of some sort looking for some prospects in the middle of a farcical war with no-end.  He was a bit of a ghost down here.  Nobody saw him.  Nobody knew him. He stayed in the prominent Achrafieh area for convenience.  “The safest part of Beirut,” he’d say. The sound of my camera release bottom re-echoed over and over again in the stillness of that barren place, bouncing off the empty, worn-out, and shattered walls around me. Chambers was on her balcony painting, and her red Beetle parked below on Rue Verdun.  As Salameh’s convoy passed that red wagon at 3:35 pm and turned onto Rue Madam Curie, a hundred Kilos of explosives attached to the car by a Mossad agent was remotely detonated either by Chambers herself or on her signal to another Mossad agent. They did not mistake him this time. A truc macabre.  The blast left Salameh conscious, but severely wounded and in great pain, having pieces of steel shrapnel embedded in his head and throughout his body. He was rushed to The American University of Beirut Hospital, where he died on the operating table at 4:03 pm. Salameh’s four bodyguards and four bystanders were also killed, and at least 16 people were injured.  I was on the other end of town, with Wesley Ruggles and Zeina Salem taking countless shots of The Plugged-Sniper of Beirut -who walked no more than thirty steps to his rifle.  Fired some shots at random crossers –who crossed from one side to the other every time and walked back to his seat to smoke cigars and drink single malt whisky all day. A Chaplin-like puppet of sorts.  A war junkie. A mutant gorilla on the run. A member of an elite division called the Zombie Squad. Why do you do it ? Ruggles asked him. The Plugged-Sniper of Beirut looked back at him after a long pause and said: I’m shooting people.  Ruggles perplexed asked: But why? The Plugged-Sniper of Beirut said: They pay me twenty five Lebanese Pounds (for the head) for every person I kill. Ruggles asked again: How do they know how many you’ve killed?  At that point, The Plugged-Sniper of Beirut got pissed because of Ruggles disrespectful remarks. Dropped his rifle and said: Ain’t I an honest man? The air turned purple and crowds rushed in to get the latest news from an old, dusty radio inside. You could feel the heat of the day in full armor.  My counter-part –still pointing his machine gun at my temple, was in a chill mood. He grinned at the end of his act and said: Hasta La Vista, Baby.

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