Alright, it's Thursday, March 5th, 7.30 in the morning. I'm on my way to work driving. And I'm going to try to record some more details about chapter 1 and possibly work into chapter 2. I mean, maybe some more details about chapter 2, but work into synopsis of chapter 3. Like I said, chapter 1, scene 1, will involve discovering the cigarettes, but you know, instead of just having a boy standing over a mound of cigarettes, I thought I'd put a little bit more action into the scene. Action seems to be, you know, seems to captivate. The names make them more funny. So, Omar or Omar as people will call him. Maybe I'll have a little introduction about how you say it and how he hears people say it. But anyway, I think he's going to be lying on the ground and he will have just had a bike accident. I mean, he will attempt to the tabletop trick in the empty lot that has like two little jumps. And the second one being bigger than the first one, and most of the time the kids just were going to ride around it, but today he felt like he could take it. My mouth was dry. No, that's not it. My mouth was desert. Literally, I had sand in my mouth. I had a lot of it, and I was coughing it out. I couldn't breathe, and I was coughing it out. I could hear, my ears were ringing, but I could faintly hear the other boys riding over to me. Oh, man, did you see that he wiped out like he was 10 feet in the air. Do you think he's all right? Do you think he need, does he have to go to the hospital? What's the hospital number anyway? What's the empty? He's going to need stitches. So those were the kinds of cries that were coming out. My head, my headset was broke. My headphones to my Sony, to my Walkman. It was lying next to me, as the ringing subsided, I could hear the music. Funny thing is, as the ringing subsided, I could hear the music from my headphones. They were all mangled around my neck, and the weird thing is, was that the song sounded just... I couldn't put my finger on it, but the song sounded... Like it was the right song to be playing right now. Queens, another one bites a dust, another one gone, and another one gone, and another one bites a dust. I guess that was me, the one that bit the dust. I lifted myself up, all the boys were just staring. Oh man, that's what we should call him now, you're not, oh my, oh man. Oh man, dude. You were flying. What in the world made you think you could jump that high? I said, I sat upon my knees and I dusted myself off. Where is it? Where's what? My bike, you jerk or you asshole? Oh, you didn't see it, it flew off into the woods. And you just, you started, you looked like a beetle that was upside down. Arms flailing in the air after the bike flew out from under you. It was kind of funny, dude. You should have seen it. You would have been laughing, so don't be pissed off at us. Let's go get it. Someone show me where it is. My got off his bike, walked over to the empty, over to the boys and berry bushes that had surrounded the trail up against the pine trees. There were pine trees all around, so we couldn't see, it was like an empty forest lot. And the boys in berry would creep up to like six feet tall, all over the pine trees. My bike was in there somewhere and I had to get it. As we, Makuhara ET edition was in there somewhere and we had to get it. It was getting dark too, so it was hard to see. I couldn't tell if it was sunset or if that was the yellow street lights turning on. In the clearing where the street we met a lot. We searched and searched and then well, my bike was the skinniest, so he went through there. Dude, I'm not getting it. There's sticker burrs all in there. That's the kind of stuff that they would say. But Chris was like here. I'll show you how it's done. Chris was skinny. He was skinny and he was brave. He's to tease him so bad and he didn't seem to mind. It's a damn say. Dude, don't turn sideways. I can't see you anymore. He went in there and he says, right here, guys, it's right here. I went in there and I saw him trying to pull my bike from the tangled mess of the boys and berries and branches and weeds. Then Chris stopped and he reached down and he's like, hey, look, check it out. I was like a porno mag. I didn't mind a playboy. But under the playboy, as he picked it up, I for some reason, normally I would have been right there standing next to him, checking out the ladies. But there was something under that. The magazine that he didn't catch. Maybe he didn't catch because he didn't have to. His dad was the owner of the local grocery store. He could have this anytime he wanted. And the playboy, man. I'm sure he sells them. It was a pack of cigarettes. Well, a half pack, maybe even a third of a pack. He didn't see it. I grabbed it as I was picking up my bike and I was stuffed it in my pocket. So I'm going to lose the ability to have them all talking about the best way to to hide the cigarettes. So I think Chris is just going to have to say he found them. And just as I was about to put them in my pocket, Chris turned around and said, do not so fast. And I was like, what? I was like, I saw what you put in your pocket. You know how many times I've seen people try to pick pockets up from my dad at his store? And I'm over. I was like, well, they're mine, dude. I found them first. He's like, fine, suit yourself. Or he's like, like, dude, you don't even know the first thing about smoking a cigarette. You've never had one. Bullshit. I have two. When? Was that summer camp? You've liar. Dude, their mind I found them. Okay. No, they're not yours. I found your bike. Now, you better hand them. Now, you better at least give me one. What the hell are you guys talking about? Mike came in. Oh, you found cigarettes. Dude, those are kill you. Don't touch those. You worse. Where's the harm in trying one? One one is not going to kill you. My dad says that when you smoke one of those, all this black tar gets dumped into your lungs. Yeah, if you smoke a thousand, we're talking one here. There's how many cigarettes in that pack anyway. I opened it up and counted them. Looks like there's five or six. Is there five or is there six? There's five. Okay. Good. That's one cigarette for each one of us. We can smoke them right now. Shit, I left my dad's lighter back at the house. Why you got a lighter, Chris? For fireworks, okay, dude? Maybe scratch that. I don't know. Anyway, looks like we don't have a lighter. Plus, guys, and I got to go. Okay, the lights are on. Oh, shit. That means I got to go, too. All right. Well, I guess I'll take the cigarettes now. No, you're holding. Who here can keep the cigarettes safe? We got to decide right now. Michael, we can read you like an open book you're not doing. You're going to walk into your house and your mom's going to practically take them right out of your hand. She can read you so quickly. Screw you, guys. Matt, your sister might smoke them. Your sister's so damn nosy. She goes through all your shit. Yeah, don't keep them with me, man. She will smoke the shit out of them. Okay. Kirk, well, you already breathed enough second hand smoke from your grandparents, smoking all the time in your house. You probably don't even want one. I have smoked a few, but you hold onto it. It comes down to me and you, Chris. Who's it going to be? Well, to tell you the truth, my dad found that I had his lighter. And he knew I probably had a cigarette or two. He couldn't find the pack. So, it kind of got away with it there, but it looks like it's you. Dude, not right. Now I thought, that was my chance. Take one, do a solid for the team. So I say, okay, that's cool. Yeah, I can hold on to him. When are we going to smoke him? Well, we got to figure that out. Take your coffee, bring him here. How about we smoke him right after school? Today was the last day of school, so we can't like smoke him right after school. Saturday morning, tomorrow morning. Let's do it. All right. So, we meet here tomorrow morning. When? 8 o'clock? Shit, no, man. I ain't waging that early. He still wants to watch the Transformers. Fuck you. Screw you, asshole. That's what everybody says. I knew that fuck you, man. He didn't say the F word, it meant you wanted to fight. So, all right, we'll meet here at 10. Okay? All right. Don't be late. Because if you're late, we get to smoke your cigarette. All right, Omar. We expect you to hold on to these forests. And don't. You remember what happened with the Pornow video, right? The Pornow tapes that the Mitchell held for us, right? Don't fuck it up. Don't just leave them in your closet for your nosy mom to find. Think of a good hiding place, like. Where's the place that your mom will not look? My mom doesn't look my shit. The hell she doesn't, every mom does. Think of a good hiding place. And one of your cassette tapes, that's, that's pretty good, because they think cassette tapes are in there. So just leave your cassette tapes in the case. Find some. Find some, some, you know, find an empty tape or leave the, leave the, the, the, the paper in there and just hide the cigarettes in the cassette tape. Cassette case. Think it'll work. Dude, it's bound to work. Okay? Mom's do not check cassette tapes. Do you have time to cut out a book? No. Besides, you ain't got no books in your room anyway. I read. Fine, fine, I'll do it. Yeah, like that. So, um, so we all left and rode home. I, I sped through the neighborhood streets as fast as I could go. My, my mangled headphones still dangling from my neck. I finally got home, rode around, opened the back gate and rode around to the back porch. And looked for my brother. He was sitting in the, uh, at one of the barstools in the kitchen. He could see that I was late. He didn't say anything. He just said, my home was here. Home was at the back door. I was like, dude, you suck. I was trying to gently tap on the door when he saw. I can see my mom storm over to the back door. Oh, my what did I tell you about coming home? Mom, the lights just turned on, okay? No, they didn't. That was 15 minutes ago when the lights turned on. You are late. I'd ground you if I could, but we're going to Egypt tomorrow, so there's no time. We're what? We're, I'd ground you if I could. But that would look bad to your relatives. We're flying tomorrow. Get your bags packed. I left a suitcase in, uh, there's a suitcase on your bed. Go get your bags packed. Where what? Oh, no, I thought to myself the cigarettes. We're not going to get the, I have a movie again and we're not going to get to smoke them. They're going to think I'm, I left a skipped town without them. That's right. You heard me tomorrow. I couldn't believe I had totally forgotten about our trip. Yeah. See, my father died a year ago. And my mom promised we, we'd go see the family. My father died last year. And my mom promised his family we, we'd go see them. I'd never been to Egypt. Well, technically, I, they said I went once when I was a baby. That doesn't count, right? I mean, if you were wearing for my mom constantly showing me on the map where Egypt was, I wouldn't even know where it is. And now, we're going to be on some international flight and spend the summer in a place. I don't know anything about to see people I've never met before. I went over to, I went to my room. I had to still, at least I could pack and she wouldn't, I could pack my cassette tapes first and she wouldn't think too much about it. So I started trying to find out which cassette tape was the best to hold cigarettes. Durandoran? No. Polonotes? No. Which bilion? No. Too tough looking. Durandoran? Hmm. Looks like the popular kids at school. Polonotes? They look like pervert teachers. The rolling stones? Definitely not. How about hook-don classics? That's definitely one she'll never think. Unless she wants to listen to it, she loves that stuff. Okay, maybe not that one either. It's got to be something that she would just gloss over. Not want to listen to anymore or not expect me to listen to. How about this old, how about the Beatles? Nobody listens to the Beatles anymore. Yeah, that's it. I'll use the Beatles. I realized I hadn't even had time to make any mixed tapes either. So I started packing my clothes. Mom? How hot is it in Egypt? It's hot, right? No answer. She don't want to talk to me. Crap. Oh well, I guess all the shorts I can find pack my bird whale beach breaches. Pack my. Ocean Pacific corduroy shorts. How many pairs of van should I pack? One or two. Definitely take the black checkered ones. They just started coming out with these cool new lace up van. I was wondering. And I saw them still in my closet. Well, I was wearing my brand new lace up van. Anyway, um, parachute pants. I'm guessing those are going to be too hot. Pack my t-shirts. Socks. Ocean Pacific, of course. Let's go over to, uh, don't forget your toothpaste. Right, right, right, I got a pack of my toothpaste. So I went over to the, uh, bathroom, and I unpacked my toothpaste. And, um, what else? Deodorant. Mom, where's the deodorant? I need my right guard. So there's. Anyway, um, after packing my bags on magazines, BMX action, of course. BMX thrills. BMX racing. I had this funny new ad about mountain bikes in it. The hell's a mountain bike. I had this funny frame like it was a 10 speed. But then people were riding it in the dirt because they had knobby tires. There was this guy, uh, 80 Fisher. Gary Fisher, I mean, uh, what was it? Gary Fisher, she's riding around on them like they're BMX bikes. Racing. I didn't going to go nowhere. So, um, I'll unpack some of my music video magazines. Music video clips. See, we didn't have cable. Mom wouldn't let me. Mom was too cheap to pay for the cable. So I'd go to the store and get these magazines. She'd, she'd buy those. She wouldn't let me. And then the magazines, they'd have all the clips, they censored out of the videos. So what's the point? Like David Bowie's China girl. You can see part of the girl's boob in the video. Well, they cut it out and put it in the magazine. I don't get that. Like in James Bond movie, you go to the theater. Not one James Bond girl is going to show her, her breasts. But in the credits and the, and in the opening song, there's a girl swimming around in naked. I don't get that. Why? And I'm allowed to go see the movie. Anyway, after I was done packing, I dozed off to sleep. It felt like five minutes before mom was spraying water in my face. Get up. We leave. We have to leave the house in 15 minutes. You're alarmed. You didn't set your alarm? Holy crap. I threw on my clothes. And I poured a bowl of cereal, scarfed it down. And I was ready. We all hopped in tiny little Buick sky like that my mom had, my mom's Buick. And we headed off to Intercontinental Airport of Houston. The airport headed off on the 30 minute drive to the Intercontinental airport. And I didn't even call the boys. Or maybe I was waiting for a chance to call. They were all in the car. And I finally decided that call, Mike. Mike, dude, do you know what I have to do today? What? We're going to Egypt. Bump fucking Egypt. The E and BFE. Yeah, dude. That. I told you how I don't like that, right? Whatever, dude. You're leaving? You're getting on a plane and stuff? Yeah, I know. It's crazy. We're leaving now. I totally forgot. Well, what about the, you know, the I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave. Dude. I know. I can't just like walk over there and give them to you. Hurry up. Horn is honking. Dude, I don't know what to tell you. I'll try and hold on to him. And I'll see you in three months, okay? I got to go. Bye. So, hung up. And I was like, Michael's like, dude, you suck. And uh, I'm going to wait, but wait. So, I hung up the phone and we left. Then, we got to the airport. The airport, the Intercontinental Airport of 1982 was stuck in 1965 or 66. It was the design. It was built 20 years ago. No, 10 years ago. But I'm sure it was designed at least 15 years ago. It was right out of MoonRaker. James Bond. Or it was right out of like Westworld. You know that movie where the robots go, haywire and they start killing all the people who are like that. Got these huge terminals and trains going underground and taking you this way and that. You don't really know if you're going to the terminal or not. I didn't know where we were going. The walls couldn't tell where the wall begins and the walls end and the floor begins. Everything was all curvy. And I had those cigarettes still in my shorts. I didn't, I had that, they were in a tape. And when we got to security, so When we got to security, I didn't know what to do with them. This is the one part of the book I have to be pretty precise about because airport security was different. Airport security was run by just a regular airport security firm or the airport. And maybe the FCC or not the FCC. The FAA. And all that it did was... This is a perfect chance to do some review and research. Absolutely there are people who talk about the differences. Because when I realized that we were all standing, would we even stand in line? There weren't all lines for airport security. So we can't stand in line. So anyway, I gotta think about that too much. I'm not sure if I can do that. So as we were going through the metal detectors at the airport, I noticed people were taking stuff out of their pockets. They were leaving them in the little ass tray like thing and the lady would give them back to them. She wouldn't give them back to me as a kid. And this is also after I told this mom, I'm gonna go in a different line. That's only if there are lines. So anyway, research that's more. So we've got the scene, the lot scene at the house. And then the scene in the airport where he has to have... He loses the cigarettes. Now how does he lose the cigarettes? He can have them taken from him as he was trying to deceive his mother. He can lose them out of negligence or he can be caught. Either way, it's gotta have a funny coincidence ending. So anyway, chapter 2. We're getting on the plane. I'm pissed. No more cigarettes. I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do. I don't even know if you can buy cigarettes in Egypt. Or if I could find them. Because all my friends, I'm sure, waiting for me to come back with those cigarettes. I was upset. And my mom thought I was upset about going to Egypt. Well, I was upset about that too, but you see, I didn't really want to go to Egypt if you didn't figure that out already. My mom's parents are from... My mom's from Lubbock. She's not Egyptian. She was born Baptist. And my father, well, he was from Cairo. You see, they... And they didn't even talk about kids for 10 years. And when they did, it was just like, yay, we're happy we have kids. And then it was that day. And then my dad didn't start. My dad wasn't even that religious. He didn't start talking to me about my religion. I didn't even know I was a Muslim. You want to know when I found out I was a Muslim? I found out... Bassackwards way. I found out because I wanted to wear a cross one day. It was at the playground in preschool. Some kid lost their cross neck, but I found it. I got that ward around my neck. I was proud. Everyone and all the other kids... I could see the smile on their face when they looked at me. And I felt like just one of them. And then my dad picked me up and he saw that necklace around my neck. He flipped out. He sat there and told me I can't wear this necklace. I'm not a Christian. I'm a Muslim. Why can't I be both? Mom's Christian? And you're a Muslim. Why can't I be both? He said it doesn't work that way. If your father's Muslim, you are a Muslim. And your mom has agreed. Mom hasn't agreed. I want to hear mom say I can't wear this necklace. Maybe something like that. It didn't matter. He took that necklace and gave it to the lady and said, I'm sorry, this is not ours. That was so mad. That was my necklace. Finders, keepers, losers, weepers. I found it. No one wanted it. So it was mine. He didn't see it that way. He decided to tell me that even though I lost something, I now know who I am. I knew who I was before that necklace. So anyway. Yeah, I'm angry that my father died, but I'm angry. That should come at the end. He should really just talk about it. Yeah, my dad died last year. And my mom promised his family we'd come visit them. No, we're not bringing his body or anything. That's still buried in Texas, but I guess we got to see him. I guess we got to know who our cousins are and who his brothers and sisters were. We talked on the phone a couple times, but I can't even hear him. And they can't hear me. We're all yelling through the phone like it's a shouting match. We're supposed to be happy. So yeah. Let me pause it. Let me start.

Continue. It's 8.30 now. Still Thursday, March. I think I would aim for it. Continuing chapter 2 where I left off. I'm not going to miss it. Yeah, so we boarded the plane and I was all down. My mom was looking at me. She knew I was down, but she thought it was because we're going to meet each other. She didn't know I just lost my cigarettes. We sat down. My brother had a window seat. My mom in between us. I had the aisle. Omar. She said to me. These people want to see you. They've been dreaming of meeting you. So you should think of this as a time to be more positive. I know it's hard. I think of all the people you've never met in the world and now you're getting a chance to meet them. Your father was Egyptian. Your half Egyptian. And in the eyes of the Egyptian government, in Egypt, you're considered Egyptian. I'm Egyptian. Yeah, right. She went on and on and on. I didn't really listen to her. I was just thinking about how she thought I was upset about dead or how. She thought this all reminded me of dad's death. And I could tell she felt guilty. Dad died about eight months ago. I can't remember eight months, five days, something like that. Yeah, he just killed over at work. He didn't, they didn't even see it coming. I didn't even see it coming. None of us did. I remember I was playing baseball. I was up at bat when they came to get me. I was at baseball practice. My mom was late. So we were having just like, just a fun game. I had switched to baseball. I can't switch. It was recess at school. I was in one of those after school programs and we were playing baseball. I was up at bat. The bases were loaded and I could feel that the next pitch was mine. But no, then I had to see and some lady covered in a headscarf came to get me. Then it was one of my mom's friends who came to get me. I forgot her name, but she, she, she, she covers her hair, you know, for religious reasons, it always spooks me. I can't tell if it's a hair covering or if she's just always depressed, but it spooks me. She was there and she wouldn't say anything to the teachers other than I'm here to pick up Omar. Apparently my mom had called him and it was okay. The teachers were yelling at me, come here, come here. I wanted to hit that ball. The teacher said you got to go. I was so mad. Yep, he died right in the middle of soccer season. See my dad was my coach. Soccer coach. It was all awkward. What are we going to do now with the team? We don't have a coach. My mom said she would coach. She didn't know what she was doing. She thought coach meant just bring snacks and tell the boys to play. Well, we played out the remainder of the season. Basically, the refs coached for us or some dad would step in and tell us what to do. But I wasn't ever going to play soccer again. I was mom woke me up when food came. The Salvinge.新鲜 in Navajo, mama was happy to see you. me and my brother were eating the food on the plane. This is really good, man. What is this? I don't know, I guess it's some European thing. But then they decided to start the movie. I don't know. Movie will have significance. So anyway, after that, I fell back asleep and then before I knew it, we were in Amsterdam. It was kind of cool and all, you know, they have different coins there. I said I should start a collection. She would have to show me her collection. She used to collect coins. They're all in the safe deposit box now, but... When we get back, I'll show them to you. But you keep these. They're all these Dutch coins. They look kind of cool. As we're walking through the airport. They're all these stores. They got a lot of...is this like a mall, mom? Well, I guess you could say that. Airports. They love to do a lot of tax-free shopping in airports. What does duty-free mean? Tax-free. See fly by. See by fly. After we walked around the Amsterdam Airport for a little while, we hopped on another flight to Cairo. How long is this one going to take, mom? It's not going to take that long. Only seven hours. Oh my goodness, seven hours. When are we going to get there? Once we got on the flight to Cairo, it pretty much fell asleep. But I did notice that everybody on the flight was Egyptian. There were a couple tours. Pretty much filled with Egyptians. I thought, huh. I've never seen so many Egyptians in my life. They were all speaking Arabic to each other. I didn't understand the word they were saying, well, I could understand a little. I was talking to my dad from when my dad used to talk on the phone. I remember a couple of months before he died, he was doing a lot of talking on the phone. I guess there was some problem. I don't really know what it was. But it was really upsetting him all the time. I'd see him at his desk working really, really late. I'd stay up and watch TV and fall asleep on the couch. Even when I got up to go to the bathroom, I'd see him still working. Some days he just had his head in his hands. He looked like he was crying. I didn't understand why. He'd have all these architectural plans on the desk. My dad wasn't an architect. He was a food scientist. Coca-Cola just started this new company. He was all in this. It was called MinuteMade. It was my new company and it was going to be big. He helped make their lemon juice product. I just turned down the air conditioner. But anyway. They showed us another movie. Maybe we flew Egypt air. It was an Egypt air flight. It showed us some movie in Arabic. It was in black and white. Boring. So I just fell asleep. Before I knew it, I woke up to the landing gear coming down. The flight attendant tapped me on the shoulder to raise my seat back. So I did. When the plane touched down, I looked outside. I could hear my brother saying, Mom, where's the gate? There's no gate. What is he talking about? I looked outside and sure enough, we're out in the middle of the runway. And I was like, Mom, how are we going to get to the airport? It's way over there. I was just like, oh, right. Here they don't have enough terminals or gates. Here they use buses. We're going to get on that bus right there. It's going to take us to the airport. So we actually got out. We could see the plane on the tarmac. It was pretty cool. Then we got inside this bus. Then the bus took us to this building. This old building coal and it had a rivals hall on it. It was all important. We got in and it was loud. It was hard to believe. This was like 10, 30 at night. This place was like crazy. It was midnight and this place was crazy. Crazy busy. There were people shuffling here and there and it had the funky smell. It wasn't like a body, body odor or anything like that. It was just a smell and I kept saying, mom, what's that smell? It's Egypt. It's the dust. I forgot. We're in the desert. So when we made our way through the desert, some dude grabbed our luggage. He was wearing flip flops. And a uniform. I was like, where is it? I thought to myself, that's weird. I was like, what's that? And I was like, where is it? I thought to myself, that's weird. That's kind of gross. My mom knew how I felt about flip flops. And she just looked at me and said, be quiet. I didn't like shoes that show your feet. It's just one of my weird things. I guess I got this like phobia of things dropping on your toes. I don't know where it comes from, but I have to cover my toes with a shoe. Yet all those people doing, and that's hard work. I could see him carrying our bags. I thought to myself, how many bags did you carry all day like this in those shoes? You didn't drop one piece of luggage on your foot. And then we made our way through customs. We made our way through passport control first. Then the bag incident. Then customs. And mom just waved us through. Some dude just looked at us. He waved at us. He saluted to us. Welcome to Egypt. Yagamah. But before he finished saying what he said, we got bum rushed. I kid you not. I don't even know what happened. This was like out in the middle of nowhere. I was grabbed by like this dude. I don't even know who he was and he started kissing my cheeks. I kid you not. You know what it's like to be grabbed by some total stranger and have your face kissed? It was traumatic. I mean, yeah. I realized like in a split second that was their tradition here. That men kissed each other on the cheek and it doesn't mean anything. But it's just weird. I didn't like it. And my could feel my mom pinching me. And that was again my signal to... to be good. Put a smile on your face and show them that you missed them. So I didn't say anything. And they just kept doing it. Each one of them. Trying to park here. I don't know if there's a spot. No really good spot here. I'm not bad.