Paranoia, taxi cabs, killer bees and tattoos

In Tangier, we fell in with a fine Moroccan crowd of activists, poets and a whimsical existentialist who drank mint tea with us in afternoon cafes. \nDay after glorious day my friends and I lived the plush life, denying nothing that was offered to us and equipping ourselves with a rigorous diet of North Africa's tropical lifestyle. Whether it was hitch-hiking back from a secluded oasis in the mountains, strolling by mopey camels on moon-lit beaches or smoking light doses of hash in cliffside cafes overlooking Atlantic fog, we knew that the good life was just a phone call away. (For those faces blushing with disappointment and scowling with disapproval, I beg you to relax. Hash is an integral part of Moroccan culture and is as common as a handshake or a stick of Wrigley's gum.)\nWe could of easily spent our entire time wallowing in the balmy grim of Tangier, but being the curious Lewis & Clark Americans that we are, my friend and I decided to heed the yawlp of exploration tumbling in our gut. \nSo for $2 we boarded a rusty bus to Chefchouen (Morocco) and brushed shoulders with escorted men in handcuffs and hand lotion salesmen. Though we poured sweat the entire three-hour breezeless ride, the scenic vistas outside our windows made it easy to ignore the streams of sweat trickling down our spines. At one moment, after waking from one of those highway naps induced by the hum of asphalt and tire, I looked out my window to see a flock of white storks soaring through a ravine, lined at the brim with watermelon-pink flowers. Shocking peaks loomed blurry in the distance and stoic Berber women were harvesting their wheat crop with long gleaming swipes of their scythes. I myself was crippled by the beauty, yet my friend, catching the same magnificent scene, later admitted to being on the verge of tears. But regardless of sentiment, we anxiously anticipated that landscape and leisure awaited us in the sleepy mountain village of Chefchouen. My god, were we wrong!\nFive minutes from town someone must have raised the gates because the hustlers took to us like a pack of riled Dobermans. With a sneering Jack Nicholson grin, a man leaned over to my friend and invited us back to his house where he wanted to "make holiday" by outfitting us with free bricks of hash. Not entirely distrusting the man's intentions of hospitality, we had heard too many first-hand accounts of switchblade robbery to know that "making holiday" could leave us violated and broke. Fearing piracy, intimidation and bribery (where we leave satisfied with no broken fingers and a new carpet), my friend clung to the buoy of paranoia and refused the home consultation.\nParanoia is a neurotic device of absolute fear. Just a fickle, yet sometimes wolverine-like, masquerade of man's most pitiful barricade: self-doubt. It's like a generous batch of fresh napalm smeared on one's free-will, leading to such cankerous trends as racism, quirky self-help books and goofy political schemes. Being so, corrupt cops unload round after round in New York and Cincinnati, those Wal-Mart sappy Chicken Soup For the Soul books are best-sellers, and the Bush administration plays a dangerous game of 'my missile is bigger than yours'. Paranoia also causes us to fear the wrath of the stranger when all that might unfold is a local Moroccan\'s version of a holiday. Sometimes man tip-toes when he needs to sprint.\nWe could have been showered with silk robes, feasted for days on figs and dates or been fed olives by his daughters if only we would have followed that man. Now I'm not suggesting we were wrong for not accepting the invitation -- it was likely for the best. Yet it is a concept to chew on a piece of hay about.\nBut paranoia always reincarnates itself...\nOn the bus we had a jovial conversation with a man who spoke a suave dialect of English. But once off the bus he started guarding us like Gary Payton, refusing to let us pass unless we shared a taxi with him to the "hotel" that he owned. After a few no-thank-you jukes we shook him and caught a taxi up the road. As we walked away I looked over my shoulder to see him pumping his fists at us and furiously yelling, "Come back! I no steal from you! Why you so paranoid?"\nI still have grim flashbacks of hanging halfway out of the taxi as it zoomed through the narrow streets at 40 mph. The soul of my shoe lost about an inch as my foot skimmed the pavement. About this time my friend was ordering me to jump out. We were in such a stupor getting into the cab that we didn't notice the man who had been yelling at us sitting in the front seat like a gargoyle, with a look of revenge plastered across his face. He was invisible slick, like a samaria. Looking back on the whole stunt, I don't know what scares me the most: our naivete, or the fact that I was willing to do a commando roll out of a speeding Moroccan cab.\nStanding safely in a plaza, with tragedy narrowly averted, my friend was pale with fear when he suggested we recuperate in a cafe with our favorite drink: mint tea. For a second it seemed the tempest would retreat. \nYet as the waiter brought us our tea, I heard him snicker. As he left a swarm of bees descended on us, deliriously addicted to the mint leaves. \nPeace seemed unreachable.\nNot until later that evening, when I was in a Moroccan's home, did I take my sigh of relief. Even the most rigid bouts of paranoia dissolve. \nAnd in the end there is nothing left to do but relish. Especially when a doe-eyed little girl invites you into her home to give you a henna tattoo for your pocket change.