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Living
in a house very much like this one on 11th Street in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Tim
Barger grew up in the 1950s thinking that blinding heat, humidity and howling
dust-storms were normal. By seven he had already experienced several locust
plagues and was looking forward to the next one.
Arabian Son is a collection
of stories about Barger and his friends’ misguided attempts to amuse themselves
in an oil camp lean on amenities and devoid of movies and TV. Crawling through
hedges frosted with DDT, climbing hundred-foot radio towers, spelunking through
a subterranean maze of air conditioning vents, ten-year-olds, they made the
most of the world they had.
A Few Excerpts
My second day hanging around the job site, a plasterer took me
aside and using some plaster on a shingle swiftly shaped a fish and then deftly
transformed it into a bird as if he were some primitive Saudi Picasso.
Hooky
We were all stunned into silence – for about ten seconds –
then we erupted in convulsions of laughter.
Scott Miller’s Invention
We made our way up the AC ducting to the grill work and
could see everybody on the other side raptly watching the movie. All the front
row seats were occupied by kids we knew, the reflected light from the screen
flickering across them in different colors and shades, the soundtrack blaring.
They didn't know that we were there - just 10 feet away.
Rites of Passage
Then the feature would burst on to that beautiful, big
screen and all of us, adults and kids, would step into a world so far away from
Dhahran that you couldn’t measure it.
Dhahran’s Palace of Dreams
The frontal lobe comes up with marvelous ideas like wouldn’t
it be fun to ride a skateboard down a steep hill that crosses a busy
intersection? Or my favorite that actually happened – wouldn’t it be a kick to
grab one of those deadly poisonous sea snakes at Half Moon Bay and handle it
until it bit you?
Think Ahead
Well, the money was for emergencies and being absolutely
ignorant we had no idea what “two-drink minimum” meant but behind that beaded
curtain was Lana, so we pulled out the cash and were ushered in.
Looking for Lana
After a few minutes, backlit by the rising sun, a Russian
wolfhound comes running down the surf line followed by a tall, beautiful young
girl with blonde hair to her waist wearing a yellow bikini. She is gracefully
skipping along like a gazelle on helium.
Walking to Ras Tanura
Somewhat concerned, we approach Milt’s lifeless form
sprawled out under the streetlight.
Kangaroo Bikes
Half a dozen kids were bunched together like a stalk of
asparagus with their arms up in the air undulating like a gigantic sea anemone.
Strange James was in an air guitar paroxysm and everyone else was just flailing
it up.
The Double-Shot Solution
Find a couple of fluorescent tubes and we would instantly
have a dramatic and very brief sword fight that ended in a burst of shattered
glass and a faint cloud of super-carcinogenic mist.
The Rule of Life
