We spend the day in a taxi shuttling between Giza and Sakara for six hours with a wrinkled little driver who snickers audibly at our stupidity. The scene demands I laugh at Donovan as he receives an important gift from me. By the end of the day my laugh has become a hideous, emphysemic croak from all the fumes consumed through the window of the cab. I crawl into bed with advanced lung cancer, and sleep badly, gnawed on by money worries and paranoia of yet another eviction of some unknown kind, perhaps from Clive, the Hotel Lialy, or The Godfather, who can't evict me as I don't live in his house, but knowing him, he'd have a good try anyway.
I email evil roommate the next day to ask if I could get the rest of my rent back for January seeing as he has, in all fairness, evicted me and I could do with the cash (for online shopping). He tells me to fuck off, so I set my Liverpudlian family on the case. Scousers enjoy arguments and are like vicious, abused little dogs, particularly with money matters: the more one kicks at us, the more we sink our teeth into your wallet. My father emails triumphantly to report that evil roommate hung up on him after a threat of legal action. I like to see father so youthful and invigorated by dissension. I feel in many ways he would have an awfully dull retirement without me to liven it up.
My mood is foul. Cairo is cold and dirty and stressful. I grunt in monotones at Gabe and Donovan for two days, and they, sweet boys, try and appease me with chocolate and sympathy, but to no avail. It is only after a night of beer and a morning of yoga that my chemical cocktail coalesces into an uneasy harmony of Margarita-proportions, and I feel less suicidal, although still anxious to return home to California.
Cairo is a foul place. The people are nice, but still, Cairo itself is a bit shit. It attracts a certain kind of tourist: the common and the stupid. I am constantly amazed at the number of white women walking around in see-thru, skimpy outfits, seemingly oblivious to the fact they are in a Muslim country. Walking rape, I mutter when I see these women. Whores. Bitches. Gabe and Donovan look at me in consternation but I remind them I am a writer and merely a cipher for the prevailing emotions and attitudes of those around me, and in a sense, devoid of any free-will or determination of my own, and thus accusations of misogyny are completely unfounded. Also it's kind of like being a Jew. You can't be mean about Jews unless you are one, and then it's totally allowed. Ditto bitches, sorry, women.
We went to Giza to shoot today. Walking rape with a visible g-string sauntered past and the gods obviously disapproved as a raging sand storm whipped up in furious objection, and we were forced to retreat to KFC and the comfort of online shopping for consumer items we neither needed nor could afford. Cairo brings out the worst in me and my ailing credit card. Because of the sandstorm, shooting has been postponed for several days and it looks like I can't fly back to LA until Thursday, rather than Tuesday as originally planned. I hate indie filmmaking. I like order and planning and a big fuck-off trailer filled with organic foods and hot beverages and people to talk to, not a desolate corner of Egypt and public transport home.
The week stretches before me, empty, desolate, pocked only with visits to pyramids to shoot painful scenes in sandstorms, and the lure of online shopping outlets. The insanity creeps closer everyday. My editor at Penguin emails and informs me I should take a writing course with "people I really respect," not "effete snobs". I can't think of anything more conducive to self-loathing and writer's block than a room filled with a bunch of earnest, poetry-reading wankers all slathering for a chance to rip my prose to shreds and reduce me to a blubbering, self-harming, broken mess. I thank her for the advice, and steer my reply onto a different, more interesting subject. Me.
Have not heard from Clive for weeks, months, years, since Tuesday. I fear he is plotting my eviction.
The shoot rolls on, relentless and unceasing. I wonder vaguely if I really needed the black, shiny, lame yoga pants and whitening toothpaste, but fortunately I registered for free shipping because of the size of my purchases.
Cairo has been a learning experience. I feel I know myself after Cairo. It is a horrendous acquaintance, and I am looking forward to the selfish oblivion of California once again.