Call of Nature

After six months of fuul it was time for a change at Faisal’s. Last week one of the other diners was seen with a plate of addas  before them. Ah, yes! Of course. Good idea. That day however F. had run out of the lentils it must have been. Eventful street this afternoon with half a dozen cops landing for some unknown reason. More eventful still when a woman who was thought to be a Sudanese first stopped at the table seeking coin for food, she said. Loud, abrasive, unable to be denied. After the $2 placed in her palm she went onto the Ethiope table further along, where the old Greek gave her plenty to go on with when she tried the same thing with her. A rasping loud voice from that lady that sounded male at first and brought apologies from the beggar. Toward the end of the addas the girl returned again, this time pleading something that was not clear in the first instant. Even when she hitched up her top it was also not clear. Must have been a skirt she was wearing that she could quickly raise and that was enough for her. When you gotta pee, you gotta pee. There was no hiss or splash. A hand on the table-top to steady herself, with an apology that was squeezed in. A thought to remove indoors was let slide; something like a startled rabbit in the headlights effect operating. By the time she was finished a good puddle resulted. At the register later when Faisal was informed the correction came: the girl was not Sudanese; she was Ethiopian, arrived in the country as an orphan without family. What else? Perhaps mid-20s. During her squat she had mentioned homelessness and they making you homeless. Later she came again to ask and again on leaving  from down on the pavement just past the Viet Bottle-o. When she was denied a second time she told you to fuck off then, the little pat on her head meaning nothing to her. The young twelve year old who had knifed the woman in the apartments on the next corner had been an Islander of some kind, probably about the same skin tone and no doubt same family situation.