CD Mahmood, Sidi’s scuddling elder, weathered-work baker, an unwavering, never-ending, absolute legend, has guided my father out of trouble many times before. The first time that they met was no different.
Turns out, elderly (even then) Mahmood beat my teenage father. Yes, that's really how they first bonded. One Summer’s day, my father was broke and hungry, and conveniently placed in a sook. So he searched for unguarded food, then spotted some on CD Mahmoods vendor cart. He then snuck tomatoes into his large sleeves, and tripped, and turned the white wool of his djellaba into remnants of ishrik-colored seeds. He tried to conceal it but became blinded with a 9 and 9 (he said.) And then some men ratted, and Cd Mahmood discovered him and suddenly my father was prominent to the crowd and too embarrassingly slow to try to out run Mahmood ( Mahmood said.)

Of course Mahmood was spiteful. But now, he’s not. Let me set the scene ( I say.) That day. Sultry Medetterianean air. Abeti is tumbling down a sook lane, creating a costermonger whirlwind of the sidewalk fruit vendors- endless yummy kilos of oranges and peaches and honeydew flying threw the air like pesky mosquitoes- and he can feel the weight of men throwing themselves onto his back as a young man watched along, and ran by the thief and realized who it was. It was him. The boy from the group of unemployed teenage men that argued against the gang’s rule of not stealing anything that day, because it was a friday. My father had clearly decided to break the gang’s pact. So the man did nothing while my father continued to struggle, and just watched.
At some point, my father looked up at CD Mahmood and said something- some words that now no one can remember, or at least agree upon. Here are some wide-ranging possibilities:

“Can I help you?” (sarcastic, taxing)
Ya, Rabb, I’m so sorry for disobeying you!” (remorseful, baby like)
Go spit on yourself.” (Insulting, wicked)
Woah, you really got Allah’s protection around you, don’t you, old man?” (Calm, airy, laid-back)
Answer: Nobody knows. CD Mahmood thinks its B, Abeti insists its C. Knowing my father, I like to think that he said A.
Either Way, my father received a beating, both from the speedy old man and other vendors, a pounding that he still carries marks from to this day. When my father, bloody and humiliated, finally gave up on fighting back and accepted his punishment, way after the crowd got bored and left, the old man stopped, helped my father up, and gave him a whole kilo of tomatoes. “Next time you’re hungry, just ask.”

And now they are friends. Friends, friends. It’s undoubtedly  amusing, the path to friendship that they took. Arabesque, if you will. (And I will.) Especially since CD Mahmood is a pretty old guy compared to my middle-aged father.

“Seventy years, six months, and a handful of days, God willing, and still daunting too,” He demanded four years ago, the last time we ever saw him, when my father, high off of reunitment fumes, sloppily teased him about his age. “La, La,” My father said. “There’s no way I could be friends with such an old man. You’ve just had a bit of a hard life, that’s all. Hell, these kids give me wrinkles every day!”