I am the only large white male that runs in my neighborhood.
“As long as you’re not running because you’re the only large white male in your neighborhood,” quipped my friend Jason from Seattle. Maybe not the way he meant it, but yeah, I am.
It's an awkward path to health. The heat is syrupy and the public gawks. Majnoon is my mantra as I lace up: crazy.
I start out in the courtyard of my home, stretching and already sweating. I open the blue door and hit the cobblestone, past the puddle of garbage and oil outside the mechanic, towards the big masjid near my home. A soccer ball lands in front of me. I kick it back to a street game of young boys.
“How are you?” “How are you?” “How are you?” they repeat, maybe the only inquisitive, polite English they knew. Others have not been so sweet, some sweeter.
Turning the corner, I loop around a large fountain, smelling cactus and melons piled in carts. Then a swarm of taxis putrefies the warm wind, and I worry about my health. I have seen many Tunisians with deformities. I continue, dodging a wheeled cart full of steaming bread wrapped in red cloth. Turning on the afterburners, I leap between traffic to the sanctity of Hadiqa Belvedere.
Half park, half zoo, Belvedere is full of dirt paths, scabby hills and wild dogs. Subsequently, cats do not roam here. Shepherds corral goats along the asphalt road, animal and car bleats mixing with the hum of the cicadas. Sluggish groups of overweight men infect passerby's with the jollity. A construction of chin-up bars and elevated logs usually swarms with groups of young men. Peacocks and antlers line another path. A large decrepit stone wall holds back a monumental pile of dead limbs, leaves and litter. Men camp in tents underneath the semiarid foliage. Barging into one, I nearly crashed into a lazing man. His bloodshot eyes blazed with questions underneath a fishing hat. Beneath the dirt, beneath the grime, I realized we are the same age.
Those who frequently exercise know how you start to recognize people at the gym or on the route. Usually they are the strange ones. In Belvedere, we have our share, including an ancient running fanatic and a mustachioed giant with three dogs. His black canines are fierce. After one chased me and bit my calf, I punted the kelb. Now, when the owner stretches on the hilltop, I loop around the beasts and watch them overtake, scare and attack people.
Near the dog man is a steep, uneven stone staircase. I go there on every run because, besides the challenge, the top affords a sweeping panorama of northern Tunis. White square buildings and the blue shimmer on the horizon of the Mediterranean.
Once, on my way to the crimson sunset, I was stopped in my tracks by a little girl in a pink dress. She was crouched in a dirt path between a stable and a educational farm. The gold light of the dusk splayed through the trees, casting her shadow across the ruddy ground. I slowed as I approached. Her round face peered up at me, the large alien, as she pawed dirt. She seemed to think for an instant before launching a brown clod onto my legs. I stiffened mid leap and stumbled on my ankles, dazed and confused. She was too young to talk, and I dully mumbled thanks in Tunisian dialect: aiishk.
On another run, on another road, a boy smiled at me, his brown eyes beaming and his smile a broken chaos of enamel. He then screamed, “Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy!”
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