Shaving Omar

This story is a revision of an earlier post, entitled The Man With the Gravelly Voice and was reworked as part of a writing class I attended this winter. I hope you enjoy both versions.

At first glance the ancient walled city of Fes, teeming with insistent hucksters, littered byways and gauntlets of beggars, seems anything but spiritual. But Fes, the Spiritual Capital of Morocco, offers a path to unveiling the imponderable mysteries of life through the unforgettable characters who reside there. Finding room in your heart for these unique individuals offers a profound spiritual practice. But take heed for the path offered is strewn with endless opportunities for judgement which demand suspension before Fes will allow a glimpse into its raison d'etre.

Opportunities for value judgments  as plentiful as cafes and Coca Cola, abound in Fes. There, on a busy street, sits Hakima the bearded lady. She lolls her truly filthy self where she cannot be missed and constantly picks at the ever present scabs on her hairy outstretched legs. The mean beggar lady stations herself around a well traveled corner with her extended hand and obsequious manner. Deposit a coin into her insistent hand or she will maliciously berate you with her raging sense of entitlement. Watch out for Naima, the once beautiful femme fatale with cartoonishly rouged cheeks and smeared red lips. Her propensity to wield the sharp knife tucked inside the sleeve of her galabah gives rise to your impulse to immediately distance yourself from her.

A testosterne fueled cadre of men add their own special element to the mix of bizarre characters in Fes. Omar, an outlandishly wretched man, led me to see beyond his never-ending drunken stupor and oily rags to glimpse the elusive and filtered light Fes offers.

The young men of the medina made sport of Omar and took perverse pleasure imitating his lurching gait and his gravelly voice. These locals pushed him and baited him as he shuffled up the road in search of handouts and his next fix of mind-altering substances. I invariably gave Omar a wide berth when I saw him approaching. But Omar would always surprise me whenever our paths crossed for no matter how far I attempted to veer away from him he unfailingly spotted me and offered up a compliment -- in English.

"You have beautiful eyes" he would growl through the thronging crowd.

Who knew there was a chivalrous side to this foul smelling town drunk? I wondered, did he offer up kind words to his blind girlfriend? Yes, Omar had a woman in his life who served to imbue him with humility and a brief dignity whenever they made an appearance in public. I would see them walking arm in arm up Talaa Kbir and Omar always walked a little bit taller and straighter when he and his lady friend were together. No one dared to mock him or provoke him during these promenades. Some unspoken rule applied during these moments of pretend sobriety with everyone willingly participating in the charade that here was a typical couple out for an evening stroll. Omar's girlfriend couldn't actually see the wreck her man had become and during these special occasions everyone else organically agreed to suspend their own ability to see as well.

One day the rumor mill about Omar's death reached me. This was no surprise because lately his increasingly gaunt face had begun to look like carved, charred wood. Whatever it was that Omar ingested or drank to get through each day had finally done him in. And then I recalled a scene I had witnessed about a week prior to his demise that now seemed particularly poignant and helped me to see things differently.

Opposite my house sat a much used public fountain. Omar perched on the wide tiled curvature surrounding the fountain while a fellow drunkard hovered over him. The perpetually cold water ran out of the spigot as Omar's bristly face was audibly scraped clean by his pal. Here and there, rivulets of watery blood ran down Omar's face from the unsteady hand of his volunteer barber and the certain dullness of the razor. Once again I was taken by the way Omar submitted to the ministrations of someone who took time to tend to him and the aura of dignity such attention created. This was the last time I laid eyes on this man with the gravelly voice.

When I learned about Omar's death I wondered what was to become of his blind girlfriend and his companion who shaved him with such attention. I wondered who would miss Omar and mourn his passing. And suddenly I realized I would mourn him because Omar had given me something that had been eluding me for so long. My heart ached as I realized that on that day at the fountain all outward manifestations of Omar's miserable choices fell away. All I saw was a flawed but vulnerable man with a desire for a clean shaven face.

I miss Omar, may he rest in peace, because I think he saw me before I saw him. I like to think his comment about my eyes was more about what my eyes are capable of seeing rather than an attractive physical attribute. I now recall Omar's humiliations, pain, and suffering as if they were my own. I experience Omar's brave attempts to rally and his repeated failures to correct his mistakes on a visceral level. I view Omar's struggles with a tenderness that penetrated some of the hardened places in my heart for his journey was just a gritty version of my own.