static dancing

i went to the hotel and saw some people i know sitting at the table. i sat down. one woman had very clear skin and was talking about her junior brother in france, always with enthusiasm. we tapped her pidgin knowledge. one asks how can you say "i did not kill the man." i suggest ah noba kill i, which the woman with the junior brother rejects with an éclat de rire, saying that this would imply that though he has not yet been murdered, it is certainly in the plans. better to say ah no kill i, which i understand to mean that murdering this particular man is not part of your lifestyle.
a group was trying to gain enough members to leave together to an expensive restaurant. a smartly dressed young fulani woman arrived and kissed the cheeks of those of us she knew, in the french style. perhaps she had dressed up imagining that we would all see her outfit, then look at our own outfits, then revel in the coincidence that we had all dressed up as if going to a night club, so why not all go out dancing together. the man who was chiefly concerned with the older sister radiated the air of someone who is unshaven and has 4000 francs in his pocket that has to last him the next 26 hours until his currency of concern becomes the dollar. i decided not to order a beer and asked questions about venture capital funding.
when it started to seem as if we'd actually have to go to a dance club unless we had an alternate plan, i suggested that we buy the cheap arab sandwiches with coleslaw and habanero sauce on carrefour bastos and eat them at a nearby bar.
perhaps everyone except the girls had been secretly harboring the idea. 20 minutes later we were standing in a line next to the arab sandwich man, eating pork brouchettes while we waited. bastos is a rich neighborhood. we walked with the sandwiches in our hands down the side street where beer was reputed to be sold at a reasonable price. people started yelling that disapproval of just one more bad break in a cursed life.
-patience mon ami, c'est le courant electrique là. ça peut tuer.
the delivery truck's motoboy climbed back down. someone handed him a stick and he climbed back up to dislodge the severed bootleg electric line from the top of the truck so that they could move on. everyone sighed and continued their business in the dark. we sipped our beers in the shadows of the veranda, eating the arab sandwiches, watching the woman at the beauty parlor across the street, where there was still light, shuffle around as they closed up shop and changed back into their smart outfits.