A Persian Gem

by Jeff Isaacson

  I didn’t get everything that I wanted. But I did fluster him,” I smiled.

  “Wow, you flustered a cagey vet like that! Way to go, Angie. High five!” Thad beamed.

  I gave him a high five.

  “What about Farhad, his fiancée, Nez, and the mystery,” Thad whispered.

  “I think that Key, that’s his name, has a lot of experience with stuff like this,” I whispered. “I think he’s right. The theft is part of an officially unofficial Iranian operation using a female cutout who’s running things from Iran through a local person. Key believed that the local person would be an Iranian American who may hold progressive views, or even be gay, but who also feels like the Turquoise Egg has been wrongfully stolen from the Iranian people and is willing to break the law to ensure that it’s returned. This Iranian American would have local knowledge, and wouldn’t stand out down here.”

  Thad let out a long sigh, “Then it can’t be Nez. No one would trust him to dog sit. It’s Farhad…or this mystery fiancée. I don’t even recall his name. Oh, well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough. The wedding will be happening in just a couple of days. Good work, Ang. I don’t like where this is going, but…”

  “Maybe it is the fiancée,” I tried to cheer him up. “Does he speak with a British accent?”

  “I can’t remember his name, but I know if he speaks in a British accent?” Thad snapped.

  I recoiled. I took a slow drink of black market beer.

  “I’m sorry,” Thad hung his head. “I just don’t want it to be Farhad. And it is. I can just feel it in my bones.”

  Eventually the snooker tournament finished up. Dave actually beat Farhad in the championship game.

  “My parents always told me to study hard and go to college,” Dave smiled. “But I haven’t used algebra since my last day in algebra class. And I just won a snooker tournament as a middle aged man because I lived in a pool hall during my early teens. So who’s right now, dad?”

  “Everybody has daddy issues tonight,” Thad smiled.

  “I want to tell you all,” Farhad announced. “That my fiancée Dana will be here tomorrow. We’re two peas in a pod. We love to be together all the time. But because we’re so similar, we both have the same superstitions. And we both believe that it’s bad luck for us to see each other before the wedding.”

  “Hey, I’ve got a great idea,” I said.

  “Which is?” Farhad asked.

  “Since Thad and I are single here, why don’t Thad and I hang out with you guys and act as scouts? Your old friend, Thad, can hang out with you, Farhad. And I can hang out with this Dana, and we can act as lookouts to make sure that your paths never cross,” I suggested.

  Farhad looked surprised.

  “I’m an excellent conversationalist,” I added.

  “Well, you’ve got great taste in beer,” Farhad smiled. “I was just dumbstruck by what a good idea that was. You two would seriously volunteer to help us out like that?”

  “What are friends for?” Thad cast a quick glance at me.

  “Let’s do it,” Farhad beamed. “Now let’s all play another snooker tournament. I can’t have David Cross leaving my home with a winning record.”

  “You’re a clever one,” Thad whispered to me.

  Dana, Farhad’s future hubby, was extremely attractive. He looked like a guy who might walk into in grocery store in Los Angeles, into the view of a producer, and end up landing the lead role in some Hollywood blockbuster. He really did look like the Persian version of George Clooney. Except that Dana did a better job of grooming his eyebrows.

  He also spoke English with a British accent. Or, I guess proper English some might say.

  He was tall though, obviously taller than 5’6”. And I thought that, if anything, I would overestimate the height of a guy pointing a gun at me. But maybe it was an unconscious defense mechanism…Maybe Gertrude Weisswalder actually underestimated the height of the people who pointed a gun at her to make them seem smaller and more psychically manageable. It was possible. She was a weirdo. Plus, eyewitness testimony is often shockingly inaccurate. Take the Asian or Asian American BASE jumper who was obviously black, for example.

  Dana’s appearance made quite an impression on me, but he ruined that almost as soon as he opened his mouth. The first thing that he told me after greetings and introductions was that Dana meant wise. Then he launched into stories about his business. He went into great detail explaining how he’d hoodwinked some Belgian, how he’d bamboozled someone in India, and how he’d screwed the Chinese.

  It was not immediately clear to me why he was telling me about all of the business dealings he had fleeced people in. My best guess is that he thought that being smart enough to be able to take advantage of people was a sign of genius, maybe even more than a sign.

  Then he had me clear the way to the library so he could read me some poetry that he had written. It had been published, and he insisted that there were several copies in the library.

  He proceeded to read me poetry that had been written in Farsi. I tried to tell him that I didn’t understand Farsi.

  He just raised a single finger at me like some old schoolmarm reading to a kid that’s just starting to act out a little.

  Then he kept on reading.

  I don’t know why so many poets read their poems like Dana. He would stop to savor random words (which to me was like listening to someone savor gibberish) as if they were transcendent. As if poetry was like great sex that transported you somewhere magical.

  That kind of grandstanding is unique to poets and spoken word artists in my opinion. I wrote a book. You don’t see me reading to people from it and savoring each word like it’s my priceless and enduring gift to humankind.

  You don’t see visual artists calling people into their studios specifically for that final brush stroke that will suddenly make everything full of an ineffable beauty.

  Musicians almost write poetry, but even musicians don’t act like poets. The musicians I’ve known are impossibly ironic. I don’t know that they hold a single genuine belief other than wanting to feel the music and get laid.

  And Dana wouldn’t stop. He must’ve read twenty poems that were just complete nonsense to me.

  Finally, I suggested that we sneak into the lounge and get a drink. And, thank God, he agreed.

  There was only one more thing of note that happened. Sometime in the afternoon, Dana took a strange call.

  Thad and I had a plan to meet up after our quarry retired for the evening. And it was a long, dreary afternoon and evening before that finally happened.

  Fortunately, both Dana and Farhad turned in early, in separate bedrooms obviously given their superstitious beliefs, in preparation for the big day. Thad was already in the lounge when I got there at just after half past nine. Jace and her partner and Dave and his partner were nowhere to be found.

  Thad was behind the bar, and he looked like a bartender at work in an empty bar in a posh hotel at ten in the morning on a Tuesday, except that his tank top was clearly visible. He was inspecting champagne flutes for water spots when I arrived. Holding first this glass, then the next, at various angles to catch the light.

  “I’m bartending for the wedding tomorrow,” Thad told me. “I want to make sure that everything is in order. It’s going to be a late night.”

  I nodded, but Thad couldn’t have seen it. He had picked up another champagne flute and was twirling it in the light.

  “How did it go?” I asked Thad.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Thad said, “but I’m going to make an inventory of everything I need out of storage while we talk. Assuming Farhad has it in storage, which I pray to God he does.”

  “I don’t mind,” I replied.

  But as he started talking, I realized that I kind of did mind. It was hard to follow what he was saying when he was saying it mostly bent over beneath the bar and not making any eye contact.

  So I really had to listen as he began, “The first thing that I
need to say is that I really forgot just how wonderful a man Farhad is.”

  “Remarkably gracious and generous guy,” I agreed. “He lets some people that he doesn’t know from Adam and Eve stay here, even while he’s not here, just on the word of an old friend. I don’t think that a lot of people would trust their friends that much. Of course, most people might be right not to trust their friends that much, but Farhad does.

  Plus, he’s just the consummate host. He’s the guy that throws the dinner parties that everyone actually wants to go to.”

  “He’s totally that guy,” Thad agreed. “And he and I haven’t spent much time together in years. And certainly he and I haven’t spent as much time alone together as we did today since we were an item.

  And I was reminded that things just work between me and Farhad. I mean, I really believe that we could be such a great comedy team that we would go down in history, you know like Martin and Lewis or Cheech and Chong…”

  “I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone link Martin and Lewis with Cheech and Chong as all-time great comedy teams,” I laughed.

  “Well, people should start,” Thad insisted. “Cheech and Chong don’t get enough credit for just how smart their comedy was. They’re not just a couple of idiot stoners. I saw Cheech on Jeopardy! He cleaned up. I mean, granted, it was Celebrity Jeopardy! And back then the celebrity version was ridiculously easy. But Cheech was the only contestant who ever made it look ridiculously easy.”

  “Really?” I chuckled.

  “Really,” Thad rummaged around and clinked some bottles. “It was many years ago. Maybe before your time.”

  “Can I get a screwdriver?” I asked.

  Thad stood up and looked at me.

  “I’m a little busy right now,” he shook his head.

  “Then can I sneak back there and make one?” I asked.

  “I’ll make you one,” Thad decided.

  “I’m not scheduled to be bartender until tomorrow,” Thad said under his breath as he mixed my drink and clanked it down in front of me.

  “So back to you and Farhad,” I suggested.

  Thad’s tone changed as he said, “As I was saying, Farhad and I have everything that it takes to be a legendary comedy team. We’re a hilariously mismatched pair, Farhad is the best straight man, and I can seal the deal with a great, witty quip.

  In fact, Farhad is the best straight man that I’ve ever met. And it’s so hard to be a good straight man. In some ways, it’s harder than being the clown. The straight man has to build the joke from the ground up. And jokes are, by nature, ridiculous. So the straight man also has to be a great con man. They have to be able to sell the audience on the premise of the joke. And of course the best straight men are the not so straight men, like Cheech, who add something humorous of their own on the way to the clown’s punch line. And Farhad is so good at all of that. He’s such a brilliant straight man, or not so straight man, because he knows the punchline, or at least a punchline, as well as I do, so he’s strategic in his setup. He deliberately sets up things that he knows are going to be funny. He really has a rare talent. In the comedy world there is an abundance of clowns and an absolute dearth of straight men. I don’t know if comedy is going away from the classical straight man/clown duo because there are so few people willing to be straight men, or if there are so few straight men in comedy because the clowns are getting shows and movie and book deals all on their own. Whatever the cause, it’s doing a real injustice to the comedy audience. And I wish that Farhad would agree with me when I tell him that we could and should try to right that great wrong.

  But he just wants to keep running a hugely successful business instead for some reason,” Thad moaned.

  “Doesn’t he know that he could be the Iranian American Cheech?” I asked.

  Thad laughed and said, “I think he knows. I think that he also knows that it would be a poor business decision.

  But I have to say that it was an absolute pleasure to spend a day with that man again. He’s so witty and charming.

  But I have bad news too.

  First, I want to hear about your day though. How did things go with Dana?”

  “Seldom in my life have I met a bigger douche,” I declared.

  Thad laughed a hearty laugh. “He’s that bad is he? I saw the two of you in the library and he appeared to be reading something in Farsi to you when I was scouting for Farhad. And I was wondering what in the hell was going on.”

  “He read his poetry to me,” I moaned. “In spite of my objections. In spite of the fact that I don’t read or understand Farsi. He just forced it on me.”

  “Can you show me where on the doll his poetry touched you?” Thad looked up from behind the bar.

  I laughed. “It was bad touch, Thad. It was definitely a poetic bad touch.

  And when he wasn’t forcing his poetry on me, he was bragging to me about all of his business conquests.”

  “You mean like he sleeps with everyone at his businesses,” Thad looked up from behind the bar again.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, Thad,” I shook my head. “No, I mean like ruthless businessman screwing local Turkish company kind of stuff. He thinks that kind of stuff is actually something to brag about.”

  “Does he have any good qualities?” Thad laughed as he rummaged through tinkling glass.

  “No,” I declared.

  “Maybe his poetry is good if you know Farsi,” Thad suggested.

  “No,” I repeated.

  “How can you be so sure?” Thad demanded.

  “The way he read it,” I replied.

  “I can’t believe that Farhad would marry a total asshole,” Thad stated.

  “Believe it,” I nodded even though Thad couldn’t see me nod.

  “But I have to tell you something important about Dana,” I added.

  “Unfortunately, I have to tell you something about Farhad,” Thad stood up behind the bar.

  “Dana was on the phone with someone,” I began.

  “Farhad was talking with someone on the phone,” Thad began.

  “Suddenly the topic of the stolen Turquoise Egg seemed to come up,” I said.

  “It sounded like Farhad was talking about the Turquoise Egg with someone,” Thad continued.

  “And Dana said that he was so glad that it had been stolen. And that it belonged in Iran,” I continued.

  “Then Farhad said that he was delighted that the Egg was stolen and hoped it was already back in Iran,” Thad said.

  “Then, suspiciously, Dana looked at me and started speaking in Farsi,” I said.

  “Then, all of a sudden, Farhad started speaking in Farsi for some reason,” Thad said.

  “Wait,” I held up my hand. “They were talking to each other.”

  “Of course,” Thad said.

  “Apparently their superstition doesn’t extend to the telephone. Seems like cheating to me,” I decided.

  “I guess, technically hearing isn’t seeing,” Thad shrugged his shoulders.

  “I guess,” I agreed. “But where do you draw the line. At texting? They would technically be seeing the thoughts of the other person. At a picture message? They would literally be seeing the other person.”

  “Technology has made superstitions so difficult these days,” Thad decided.

  Then Thad said what we were both thinking. “Dear Lord, it’s both of them isn’t it?”

  “It would appear so,” I sighed.

  “We can’t let Farhad…”

  “It’s our secret,” I agreed. “Our lips are sealed.”

  Thad made a show of buttoning his lips.

  “I was so hoping that it was just Dana, and then you and Farhad could get back together again. And Farhad wouldn’t have to marry a douche,” I observed.

  It looked like Thad was going to cry for a moment. But he just said, “Thanks for thinking of me.”

  Then he went back to work behind the bar.

  12

  There’s just something about
a wedding that always makes me want to hide in a corner with like sixteen pieces of cake and a bottle of champagne and weep. That feeling was made worse by the eerie sight of a woman in a burqa at the wedding.

  I know that Farhad had tried to pretend like it could be anyone under the burqa. It could be a man. It could be three of Snow White’s seven dwarves standing on each other’s shoulders. But come on.

  It may be my ethnocentrism, but these are my thoughts on the burqa. A burqa is a personal sexual prison for a woman. Period. If a guy was going to hide, he’d hide as a ninja or something. All those dimwits with one stunted chromosome would think that it was so awesome that there was a ninja at the wedding. I could even imagine couples fighting later that night after the man demanded to know why she didn’t let him have a ninja at their wedding.

  A burqa has two jobs. First to obscure the delicate lady parts, like an ankle, that men just can’t help but grope if they are exposed. Second, they create the illusion that there’s no such thing as female sexuality, just some amorphous, vaguely human shaped shadow that you can have your way with if you buy the cow. And a burqa does those two jobs with ruthless efficiency.

  I’m not like most people. You know how some people say something like when you feel down you should just go drive around downtown. And when you see homeless people, you’ll be reminded of how lucky you are. And you’ll feel grateful for your life.

  That has never worked for me.

  If I’m feeling sad, and I see someone who’s even worse off than me, I don’t gloat over it. I feel even worse. Because I know how bad I feel. And there’s someone who’s got it even worse! How horrible is that?

  My guess is that some of the female guests at the wedding saw this burqa and counted their blessings that all they had to deal with was a glass ceiling and unwanted sexual advances. Myself, I felt even worse looking at that burqa. Because glass ceilings and a barrage of unwanted dicks are really bad. But that woman in the burqa might dream of a day when those were her only problems.

  I had never felt worse at a wedding. But I didn’t give in. I did what I usually do.