Morrocan Black and the All-White wedding

Moroccan Black and the All-White Wedding.

I am drinking a glass of Carlsberg in El Fino bar, Marrakech. The
interior of the bar reflects the rich, red-brown nature of the land
outside. Outside it is hot, hotter than you may be able to imagine. I
glimpse Eathon, my traveling-partner, talking animatedly to a
chamois-skinned Moroccan man dressed plainly in a pair of stonewashed
blue jeans and T-shirt. He is a spindly fellow, and covering his crotch
is a bum-bag made from soft, black leather. Why is Eathon talking to a
market-trader, I ponder!

I overhear Eathon tell the man where he comes from - describing an
'ear' on England's East Coast known as East Anglia. Eathon describes
the region well - Flat, and green and muddy due to all the rain. The
Moroccan appears to understand. Eathon then speaks of Tangiers, briefly
as he despises the place, before offering his latest acquaintance a
Marlboro Red. It seems a small gesture, but seeing as American
cigarettes are highly regarded in Morocco, I suspect that crudely
Eathon is buttering-up the man and is after something. Being the
market-trader type, I'm pretty sure the man does as well!

Time passes, a good hour in fact, during which, Tash (my other
traveling partner) and I meet the man. I say 'meet', though in Tash's
case; 'is ignored by' is more the truth. The man's name is Aziz and he
is not a market-trader.
"I ammay Jackov many trades", he tells us. Not just a market-trader,
then. Eathon doles his cigarettes. Tash and I each buy a round.
Eventually Aziz is satisfied, and agrees to score us the hash Eathon
has persistently been mentioning.

Like the Pied Piper, Aziz leads us from the bar.

The early evening sunshine is an amazing 34?C. I breakout into an
immediate sweat and notice in utter disbelief that Aziz has put his
jacket on.

"My god, the man's mad!" I exclaim in Tash's ear. "He's got a jacket
on, in this heat!"
"Tosser!" Tash scathes.
"Sorry?"
"Not you, him!" She says, pointing obviously in the direction of
Aziz.
"You don't like him I take it?"
"No, I don't like him. Why, do you?"
"I don't know yet. ?Tash?"
"Yeah?"
"Maybe it's because he ignored you that you don't like him. I mean,
girl's hate that don't they - being ignored?"
"Of course we hate it, as much as boys or anyone else hates it!"
"Yeah, sorry. ?So-"
"I think he's a cunt, Lewis, because he's a male chauvinist pig.
Because he's Moroccan, and he thinks (as all Moroccan men do) that
women only exist in order to make them dinners and have sex with, and
that when it comes to the business of making a deal, women are entirely
inept, and therefore should remain excluded from the proceedings.
That-"
"Oh right! ?I urm, get it now Tash. Sorry! ?I err, didn't think!" I
intercept, not in the mood for a Feminist rant. So half-change the
subject. "Eath seems pretty confident we'll score. What do you think
Tash? Reckon we'll score okay?"
"How the hell should I know?"
"Female intuition!"
"Shut it, will you. You're not funny."
"I was being serious!"
"Well if you really want my opinion; I think we've got more chance of
getting mugged at knifepoint down some dodgy back-alley than we've got
of scoring hash off of this little shit!"
"Fair enough."
"The bloke's a bas-"

Avoiding Tash is the least of my worries: I am beginning to smell of
stale hamburgers due the heat. I am also horny. I avert my focus,
concentrating instead on interrupting Eathon from his conversation with
Aziz. However, it is Eathon who grabs my attention; telling me Aziz has
suggested catching a taxi instead of walking to wherever it is we are
going. I say fine, but before I can add "Eathon, Tash thinks Aziz is a
wench-beating bandit!" Aziz has hailed down a horse and cart and is
beckoning us all to join him aboard it. "I'm not getting on that
thing!" Tash insists.

The journey through Marrakech's city-centre is exquisitely beautiful.
With our legs dangling like children's off the back seat of the 'taxi',
Aziz rolls a small, but definitely loaded cone - passing it first, with
notable etiquette, to Tash. This gesture excites Eathon and myself a
great deal, as it means undoubtedly Aziz will be sorting us out - it
also pleasantly surprises Tash. "Thank you!" She says, in a very
charming 'English-rose' type of way.
"Ittis velcomm, speshol laydy" returns Aziz, with just too much notable
etiquette, this time.

Five minutes later, and with my spirits hash-lifted, I suddenly become
aware that I've lost my hearing! I notice this as Eathon is mouthing
words at me, animating them with wildly over-exaggerated
gesticulations. He seems to be repeatedly saying something to me. I
don't know what it is so stare at him, uncomprehending. This amuses
him, and his image freezes. He is like a giant, cartoon spastic; arms
and legs suspended mid-flail, face contorted mid-
wrenching-guffaw.

?The gear lifts me higher. Sounds become audible again, sights however
remain uncommon and surreal. To my left the market square at the hub of
Marrakech's hypertext hustles and bustles - shouts from traders,
consumers, and children's screams for economic survival. A brethren of
old men hidden behind veils of dark skin salute Aziz as he passes, in
response his smile is a mile-wide on his face. Their memory fades and
my senses surface to capacitate traffic of natives on burbling mopeds
and creaking bicycles, that has slowed our taxi down to a trot. It
jams, as a herd of working cattle mix with and halter the bikes, and
six workingmen in a mechanically dumb, Renault-made lump of rusting
steel. Saddle-packed mules flap their ears, tormented by the
insipidness of the noise and fumes: glum and diseased by the swarms of
filth-ridden flies, eyelids cracked by the severity of the sun. I
remember that it is a mule currently carting us through this
transportation nonsense.

Mayhem behind us, we canter through the relative quiet of a residential
side street. Aziz informs us that arrival is imminent and that he
"mustav money for flend now" - The agreed price being a mere ten pounds
for a half-ounce! Eathon seconds the notion, jerkily handing Aziz
several billion Dirham (Morocco's Mickey-Mouse imprinted money), as the
taxi bumps its way over the cobblestones, dead dogs, and sleeping
drunks beneath its wheels. Aziz begins counting the money, nodding as
he does so.

The taxi veers left, and then a couple of quick sharp turns in
succession see us negotiate a perilously narrow chicane running through
a dimly lit but translucently poor area. Toddlers run alongside the
horse and cart, flapping about and holding out their hands. Until, that
is, Aziz requests they stop; shooing them away like cats. The taxi
slows, the children look on despondently, and I presume this is dealer
territory. The driver pulls-up the reigns, the mule complies, and our
taxi draws to a halt outside a shack made from dirty metal. An
unexpected quietness prevails momentarily, acknowledging the dusk. Then
a sound reminding me of my Uncle Arthur's place of work repeats itself
from inside the shack. The sound of hammer hitting metal; the sound
Blacksmith's make. I wonder if this is just a pit stop at the shoe-shop
for the mule, and not the dealer's residence at all. I'm soon informed
that it is in fact both.

Inside, a stubby man in his thirties is bent over an anvil making
horseshoes. Rather disturbingly, he is dressed identically to Aziz -
proof that the Eighties 501's/white T-shirt get-up has only just hit
the Marrakech catwalk. It is possibly hotter in here than it is
outside. I think Aziz shouts the blacksmith's name. I'm not sure as it
sounds like Toby and that doesn't sound very Moroccan. Maybe he just
said "Yo!" colloquially. Toby(?) looks up - his forehead drenched in
sweat, hair lacquered in Soul-Glow - responding to Aziz with a
psychopathic grin that says: I am as hot as Ra, also in middle of
something - can't stop! Aziz says something in Moroccan again, then
says "my English flends". Then Toby says something, and we follow Aziz
through the metalwork space and down a makeshift ramp into a bare,
concrete room that looks like its just been constructed. A man in
sunglasses is slumped against one of the walls smoking a spliff and
drinking something green from a small glass tankard. Aziz stretches out
his hand, and the man shakes it lazily before getting up. More Moroccan
banter, but slower this time. Shades-man passes the joint to Aziz who
pulls on it looking like a Bob Marley poster. Tash, Eath and myself
start giggling. Then shades-man exits the room, lethargically striding
up the ramp - probably to fit our taxi's horseshoes. Aziz apologizes to
us for not having introduced us to his acquaintances. Eath says it
doesn't matter but Aziz insists it does, assuring us he will - but only
when his "flends are leddy." In the meantime, he suggests, maybe we
would like some tea?

We are led further out the back of the building and told to sit down on
chairs, which have been arranged in a large semi-circle. We do so in
the middle, leaving half a dozen seats either side of us empty. Aziz
goes off to make the tea, leaving us to engage in a much needed team
meeting.

The general consensus among us is that the current situation is bizarre
to say the least. Of course, this is probably due to us being a bit
stoned. None of us can quite work out why we haven't scored and
buggered off yet. Also, why there are all these seats. Eathon thinks
that maybe scoring is more ritualistic in Morocco than it is in
England, and that the tea and the semi-circle of chairs is all part of
the ceremony.
Then god giveth us hash! No, I don't think so?
Though Tash agrees, claiming cannabis is part of Morocco's
religion.
"You what?"
"Yeah, it's illegal but part of their religion. So possession is sort
of decriminalised."
That definitely can't be right, I think. How can a country's religious
code of conduct contradict its law?
"Nah Tash, that's bollocks!" I affirm, with the utmost eloquence.

Then Aziz returns with a silver tray, resting upon which is a silver
teapot, silver sugar-bowl, and six silver-laced glass tankards.
"Ah, is this what the man with sunglasses was drinking?" I ask Aziz,
recognizing the tankards.
"Yes, my flend! You are, how you say, velly ob-surfing! "
The bloke's beginning to sound more Pakistani than Moroccan now, though
I'm still making out what he says!
"Yes, he's a writer - they have to be ob-surfing" adds Eathon.
Aziz smiles, then asks Eathon what he said. This gets Eathon paranoid
(worrying he's offended Aziz by taking the piss out of how he said
ob-surfing) and his cheeks go red. This amuses me, as does doubly
Eath's attempt at clarifying what he said. Aziz seems to find it funny
too, as he chuckles a lot - no doubt getting Eath more paranoid!
Finally, Eath's long-winded and over-polite explanation into how
important it is to be perceptive as a writer comes to an end, as does
the cigarette he's been psychotically-smoking!

In the same way a man tends to his fire, Aziz tends to the tea -
stirring and brewing it with a fixed gaze of attention. After five or
so minutes, it is to his satisfaction. Methodically, each tankard is
three-quarter filled with the herb-green potion that would not look out
of place in a laboratory. The Tea-ceremony, it seems, is about to
begin.

After Tash, I'm passed my tankard. It is warm in my hand, emanating an
immediate glow in my cheeks. It could be winter. Then I engorge myself
in its smell; a strong, bath-salt mint - intoxicating! Shades-man and
Toby arrive just as I'm about to take a sip, so I wait, feeling it is
polite to do so. They sit together to the left of our huddle without
saying anything, though smile at us. Aziz passes them tea, and then
raises his aloft, toasting "Salaam" that I think means 'Peace'. A
reverent mumble of the phrase follows from the rest of us. Though
Eathon's noticeably a little late, raising a smile from the Moroccans.
My first taste of the syrupy, peppermint potion is one I never forget -
fresh, invigorating and narcotic. It is Morocco I taste.

After the tea ceremony we still haven't scored. Instead a bell sounds,
and local men, most of whom are in their early thirties, begin
appearing on the dirt track behind me like animals readying to board
Noah's Arc. Rough, tired faces - clad in the uniform T-shirt and jeans.
I'm wondering whom they are, as one after the other they're greeting
Toby, Shades-man, and Aziz, taking their seats and sparking up
cigarettes and conversations with each another. Until the strips of
white garden furniture either side of us have been completely
coloured-in by their presence, and I feel like I'm in a bar. I realise
the tea ceremony isn't over at all as more tea is brought out - that
it's just beginning.

I learn from Aziz that this place, or rather these seats, is a sort of
free-house for workers in the area who congregate here after work to
smoke hash and drink tea, or booze when they can afford it. The
neighbourhood is full of these tin-shacks, each one a place of daily
labour. This one just happens to be a place of evening relaxation as
well.

A short while later Aziz declares another toast, this time to us.
Around the semi-circle chinking tankards go up like a mini Mexican Wave
- as Tash, Eath and myself are drunk to. It feels both strange and
powerful, like a magic spell is being cast upon me! All I can do is
smile, returning salutation, as a twelve-inch hash-pipe hand-carved
from Riverwood writhes and slithers its way into my hands. Aziz
oversees my inhalation, ensuring I receive the desired (over) dose, and
my lungs quadruple in size to capacitate the influx of smoke entering
me. Unable to suck for any longer, I remove the mouthpiece and breathe
out - immediately spluttering and coughing, whilst experiencing severe
bronchial pains how I imagine Angina must feel. For a couple of seconds
I am unable to breathe. I feel like I'm drowning, and I tug on Eath's
shirt like a desperate child midst my panic. Though fortunately the
pain subsides and my respiratory system restores its self to normal,
and I am able breathe and see the light of day again! As opposed to the
light of death's tunnel!

Five minutes later I am a gibbering wreck, as is Eath and Tash. Acting
like small children we pull faces, giggle at, and even slap one
another! Our behaviour astounds us, though excites us terribly, also!
Through poor night-vision, only the oil-burners hanging from the
shack's steel scaffolding joists shed any light on any thing. Only then
revealing profiles of flame-tinted faces - some strange, others
familiar - but all pulling wild expressions and going nakedly mad
before my eyes!

Refusing to pertain to any coherent narrative my existence prefers to
stagnate here in a jumble of fantasy and reality. I'm like a five
year-old too scared to sleep in the dark midst the imaginings of his
mind. However, I do not have a light to switch on, only pipes to
smoke!

Then it dawns on me?
The gear we've been smoking: is ours! Bollocks, of course it is! The
tenner we paid was for this: endless mint tea and pipes. As much for
the benefit of the local population of blue-collar workers as for our
own. Yes, we've scored?a sort of own goal!

Realising this I feel letdown. Deflated, like it's an anti-climax.
Though I don't know why it is. It just feels like one. I don't feel
high anymore. I must talk to Eath, I think. I must talk to him
now?

"?Yeah, so I think we've sort of been ripped-off a bit, mate."
The expression on Eathon's face is of concern - stoned concern. For the
last five minutes or so he has listened to what I have had to say
intently and is concerned, it seems. I don't know if he is, you see.
Eath is in deep thought - either swilling around complete crap or
something of real clarity in there; and it is impossible to say which
at this exact moment. I must wait for a response, not force one from
him. After much melodramatic perusal, he eventually looks me in the eye
- the strain of thinking forcing him to squint - before offering me his
opinion:
"I err, err ?Really! Do you think so?"
"Think what? I don't know. What are you talking about!"
"What you're talking about."
"Pardon?"
"I'm talking about what you're talking about. We're talking about the
same thing, my flend!"
"Are we?" I'm both confused and amused. "I didn't realise!"
"Yes we are, or were in your case? And will be again if I have my
way!"
"Sorry Eath, but I really have lost the gist of what you're
saying!"
"Really, it's like talking to a dog!"
"Why is it?" I manage, biting my lip.
"Because they don't listen! Oh, they prick up their ears alright - but
do they listen? Not on your side of the bed, Charles!"
"Sorry?" I splutter, close to pissing myself. ?But he can no longer
engage in conversation; already preoccupied somewhere else. In a
conversation, it seems, with his imaginary friend that is himself -
destination x that requires him to wag his finger at himself and
giggle!

The child travels like Jonathon the Seagull. Eathon is my best friend.
I love Eathon because he is like Jonathon. I desire his friendship
because it swoops and soars. On his birthday card's I write:
To, Eath?
Love, The Swift.

...I am inflated!

Tash is engaged in conversation with the third Moroccan in a row who's
tried chatting her up, and is lapping it up! Why she pretends to be a
Feminist when all she wants to be is her happily repressed mother, I'll
never know. Still, I love her regardless. I love everything regardless,
in fact! Star-scattered magic is being unleashed, and I'm stoned off my
box frequenting a back street Moroccan tea party. I'm Lewis in
Wonderland!

Collective drug abuse prevails. This time in the form of an Opium-laced
beverage, a glowing blood-orange in colour that's doing the rounds. I
know it is Opium as Aziz tells me so, though only after I have
persistently asked him "What is in this?" It looks dangerous!

?The shot-glass at my lips, I know that I shouldn't take this, but as
is the case with forbidden pleasure, do!

?People begin playing large bongo's and small bongo's and oddly enough,
triangles! People without instruments clap. The rhythm manifests itself
into the party's unbalanced equilibrium. Steadying, channeling, and
collectifying it - which isn't a word but should be. I am a part of
this rhythm - it is like the universe's raison d'etre - A clich? of
profound meaningfulness? to those who don't feel alive. And I begin
banging the palms of my hands on the tops of my thighs exhaustively,
tribally jubilant. But no one hears me, of course, except myself. And I
stop, and for a short period of time feel in contrast; distinctly
separate - In a cinema watching a silent-movie. A film, it seems, that
is drawing to a close.

From beyond the dingy shacks, lazy dogs, and dusty streets, a whirring,
whining sound carries. Not just to my ears; the whole party hears it.
And I am dumbstruck! For the sound is like an ambulance siren. I
twinge, and get that ridiculous gut feeling one has when an ambulance
rushes past and for a split second you consider it is taking not just
anybody to the emergency unit, but a member of one's own family. Then
rationality takes over and I think how unlikely that would be
considering I'm currently in Morocco! In fact, the sound is horns -
blaring madly in the night like amphetamine-propelled drunks preaching
cause. Enigmatically, for horns to sound in the evening in this neck of
the woods I am then informed, means a wedding convoy is in the
vicinity! Rushing excitedly, the Moroccans start putting their
cigarettes out and drinks down, in order to hug joyfully, link arms,
and weave and dance round together like Country &;amp; Western fans.
It is a bizarrely cheesy, but undeniably inspiring sight - and compels
me to join in with the jubilant frolicking. Then, having reassuringly
spotted Tash and Eathon also entwined in the activities, our
chaotically spread group re-forms to become a sprightly Conga line.
Soon the air is asound with both the English and Moroccan versions of
the essential 'C'mon and do the Conga' accompanying melody, as arms and
legs flail and the group resembles a giant centipede. The Conga gathers
pace and I repeatedly kick a Moroccan man in his tendons, partly due to
my stumbling around in all of the directions the wind blows - he seems
not to mind. After a minute or so in the same direction, the Conga
halts, and the inevitable happens - a Conga pile-up! Fronts flop into
backs like dominoes, but miraculously none of us falls over. Being
someway back in the line I am unable to determine the cause of the
stoppage - so ask the chap whom I've been kicking if he can shed any
light on the matter. He laughs, and then says something like "Naughty
boy like arse, eh?" Immediately I say I don't. Then he laughs again,
and with a twinkle in his eye says "Oh Ingleesh!" whilst manhandling my
left-cheek (The one situated on my face, that is!), before finally
turning back to face the front. Left somewhat concerned, I put the
man's profound strangeness down to his and my language barrier - though
as the Conga restarts, make sure I only touch him lightly, and not
anywhere even vaguely close to his fundament. Ten seconds or so later
we pass through the opened gate of a tall 'tennis-court' fence - which
I conclude must've been padlocked previously and thus caused the
hold-up - and out on to the street where our taxi is parked away to the
left some twenty yards. About the same distance to my right is the
All-White Wedding.

Like spirits roaming the night; a party of wedding guests dressed
entirely in white's even whiter than Daz white's, journey toward me
amidst a vignette of darkness and dust. They are here celebrating the
coming-together of the couple standing proud and elated on the float
being drawn by the 'taxi' they surround. Whoops, whistles, and cheers
go up from our dispersing Conga, and I follow behind Aziz, Shades-man,
Eathon, Tash, and most of the rest of the gang towards them, mouth agog
and utterly dumb-struck in awe at the wondrousness of their presence.
Instantaneously I am immersed in the ghostly realm of the guests,
stomping as though to Acid-house, and psychotically clapping my
out-stretched palms to the rhythm of assorted bongo's.

Then, and it only takes a few minutes, the exotic couple and their
brilliant entourage have gone.

I could write "?and then I wake up", with great conviction! As truly,
these few minutes are the closest I've come in my life to living and
breathing a dream.

I am 17, yet I feel enormously powerful as the all-white wedding
passes, and is gone. A dove flutters back from the evergreen fern
concealed in the mist and perches on the demi-tanned hand that I open
in thanks: I feel I have the very reason to life here in my hand - and
I want to set it free.

Maybe the night went on for a couple more hours, we all smoked too much
and I monged out in a vacant void. If this indeed was the case, which
is likely, then the vacant void was a black hole - where Time and
Gravity's laws were seen for what they really are - fictitious
concepts. But I don't remember, and it doesn't matter.

The wedding party gives way to dawn, and Tash, Eath and I gather our
things and say our sincerest farewells - leaving on the same 'taxi' we
arrived on, we might see Aziz tomorrow. As we canter through the
streets, Marrakech is like a still life. Any movement seems only a
painted suggestion, an Impressionists' brushstroke that is our
collective illusion. A few market-traders are out setting-up their
stalls, but they are still half-asleep and aren't talking - if we snap
our fingers they'll freeze. We don't talk, either. We've no need to; we
are listening to the horse. The regularity of it's breath, and it's new
shoes clip-clopping over the cobblestones then muted dust-ways makes us
zone-out but not switch off - a kind of lullaby that keeps us awake.
The driver cracks his switch lightly on the horse's hind and mumbles
foreign command to it once or twice. He isn't in a hurry, either - his
actions are habitual, not assertive.

Djeema El Fna - Marrakech's main square - appears and we recognize it.
We know that it is a landmark we've journeyed through before but that
it is a landmark as transient as ourselves. Yet it remains our cue -
our whisper from the wings to exit the stage and break through the
fourth wall where no audience has been watching - to get back to normal
life. A short, sharp tug of the horses reigns jerks us fully conscious
and to a stop. The horse is neighing, thrashing about its head and
repeatedly thumping a hoof into the ground. It is displaying us its
strength, or limbering down from the exercise, I don't know which. We
say a casual thank you, farewell and Salaam to the driver, and he nods
and wishes Salaam on us, back.

We will see Aziz tomorrow, we are sure - and in silence and bare feet
make our way through the maze of back alleys that before now, had
always gotten us lost.