Call me Skineese

By John Hicks

September 2001

I was a loner, though I didn't reject company. I arrived, the typical wide-eyed Norman, from Monterey where I'd learned enough Arabic to believe I was among the elite. My first time out the front gate, I made the mistake of tossing some ethies to beggars. My life off-post was hell until the beggars' and street boys' expectation of generosity slowly extinguished. I finally decided to adopt one lively little Sudanese streetgirl for charity and gave her mostly food instead of ethies.

Incidentally, the word for street boy was skineese, a nickname for me among the gerry drivers after I chased one down and beat him with his stick one late night when he called me a faggot for walking, not riding. Then he cried out for his buddies and they chased me down in their carts into the near-station bar district. I finally shook them by running through a bar, out the back door and down the alley. After a time hiding, I snuck back to the post. I never rode another gerry.

Which reminds me... in your lexicon of kagnew words you list kusumik. This is a shortened version of the Arabic kus (cunt) umak (your mother's) yeghalay (boils) sumak (fish). This curse actually rhymes in Arabic.

Another late night, returning from what I believe Ethiopian law defined as a temporary contract marriage, I heard a lion roar only a few yards away. I jumped up a tree and the lions roared until dawn. Everybody got a good laugh at the Norman treed by the Emperor's lions who were inside the palace compound.