The Ahmed Factor


Ahmed is not his real name but since the days when he was freaking on crystal and coke he’s married and had a couple of kids, so he no longer is a total fuckup. Besides, we always protected him from exposure as a total dick, so why not now? He comes to mind today when I read a headline: “Cheney, on Carrier, Warns Iran.”

Once I allowed one of Ahmed’s friends to do a tune-up on my truck. He assured me the guy was a great mechanic. I lived in the flat above Ahmed, whose place was furnished with stuff people set out for trash pickup. There were always three or four people living there and lost souls hanging around looking for drugs. Because Ahmed was my friend’s brother, I was trying to be be a redeeming influence on him, even though he had that junkie assumption that his demon is hidden behind a well constructed mask he can turn off and on. The demon was a disembodied flame that would burn in his eyes when he was trying to manipulate me for money or a favor. It was fueled by shame.

So I knew better than to do business of any sort with this man. William Burroughs, in his advice to young people, said, "Avoid fuckups. You all know the type. Anything they have anything to do with, no matter how good it sounds, turns into a disaster."

But I met the mechanic and he seemed to know about cars, so I let him tune my truck. It didn’t occur to me that he would take it out of the garage. It was a stick shift and he had one leg, if you're an optimist, or if you're a pessimist he had one leg missing. But of course he did take it out, getting all the way across town to Geary Blvd. before getting into a collision.

I think about how stupid it was for me to do anything at all where Ahmed was involved, because he was a black hole into which energy disappeared. It helps me forgive people who voted for Bush. I just say to myself, “They’re getting a tune-up from the one-legged Palestinian.”

As Bush tried to say and could not, fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Letting the one-legged man do a tune-up on my truck followed my letting Ahmed try to do one. I came down to the garage and he’d pulled all the spark plug wires from all the plugs and from the distributor. He had no idea how to hook them back up. I was amazed that he could be that stupid. It was the occupation plan for Iraq in a simple, easily grasped visual representation.

Did I stop when the damage was minimal? Of course not. I could have just found the wiring diagrams and figured it out, but I agreed to let his friend do the tune-up. I had no timing light and didn’t mind paying somebody to do it. This reminds me that the American public thought they were involved in a relatively simple problem at the end of the first Bush term, and just needed to stay the course.

"Let's not change horses in the middle of the stream."

"But that's a saw horse!"

I laughed at Ahmed for awhile, and tried to help him find his way back out toward the light out of respect for his brother and the family. But he destroyed everything he touched. He was draining his family's resources and it got to where I could feel him channeling the God of Suck. One day I had my toddler with me and he was on a chair changing a light bulb. He was so fucked up he stepped down from the chair and ran into her. That he was so unconscious he could walk through a child without seeing her, was the final straw. I never had any use for him after that.

When you've got an addict in the family, who just can't do right, the family usually protects him to protect its larger reputation. Things are kept quiet and settled behind the scenes. Sometimes I think about how Ahmed thought I couldn't see the shame that he allowed to be master in his house. It was what didn't allow him to get anything right. It's the same shame I see behind the posturing in Messrs. Bush and Cheney, and it's sad because no amount of money and no amount of power can transform that shame into pride. It's just putting more and redder lipstick on the pig.

"What do you think, Major?"

"I don't think, Dan. I follow orders, and I'd follow the decider to hell."

"You don't mind if the rest of us ride along with you, do you Major?"

"Of course not. Here, pin this on your lapel and paste this on the bumper of your pickup."

"Thank you, Major. Shall we sing Onward Christian Soldiers?"

"Why not? We'll pretend it's a hayride to hell."

Posted: Sat - May 12, 2007 at 12:29 PM