After Joyriding in Riyadh

Note: this story contains themes of homophobia. It's also entirely inspired by an excellent academic work called Joyriding in Riyadh by Pascal Menoret.

Despite the air conditioning blasting my face, my palms are sticky against the leatherette steering wheel. There’s not quite enough sweat to pool or drip, just enough to start merging us into one. Me and this sensible Volkswagen Golf, together forever.

The girls are in the backseat, Tabitha and her schoolfriend, and they’re talking about boys.

“Mark’s definitely gay,” Tabitha insists, “he has highlights.”

Having met Mark, he’s probably not gay. He follows Enora - another schoolfriend, currently exiled after a stolen Tango Apple - around like a puppy. Tabitha and her friends never ask me. They ask Ellena - my wife; Tabitha’s mother - who does not like to be asked, and tells me as much. She remembers her summer evenings in fields with Tesco’s cheapest cider fondly, and she would like to live in ignorance of whatever similar feats the city kids get up to.

Ellena has unwittingly deterred her from asking me.

“Dad wasn’t allowed to talk to girls when he was your age,” she tells Tabitha, whenever she complains about being raised in cold, wet, sarcastic England, “I was his first kiss, and we were, what, twenty three?”

She always overestimates. We were twenty two. It was fresher’s week and we were the oldest people on the party boat. She was the first girl I kissed, as I told her then and repeat whenever she cracks out the story. I tell myself that failing to correct her does not count as a lie.

My first kiss was part of a long summer of firsts, which started with my first car. I was fifteen, which everyone agreed was old enough, regardless of what the law might have been. I had done well in the academic year, and my little sister was due to start school that September, so the car was a reward and also a down payment on a twice-daily obligation.

Having a car changed my status with the other young men, as I now regarded myself, in my neighbourhood. A car was like a small house, my own private domain. And, more practically, the only way to do anything.

Riyadh was planned on a vast city grid, emulating the great sprawl of the American west coast. Everything would have its place, a central spine of commerce with homes spreading out like butterfly wings. The oil was flowing and the people needed to feel it, every man would have his castle, no more living sandwiched between in-laws and uncles.

The grid was built long before the city, and for a fifteen year old with a car, it was like paradise. Early summer evenings would start as the sun started to dip and the air cooled, I’d pick up friends - some old friends; some new car friends - and we’d drive out past the edge of the city, past the eagle eyes of adult society, and sit together, on and around the car. We’d do all the petty rebellion impossible on foot - smoke cigarettes, listen to bass-heavy music by Black Americans, debate God, compare plans for our eventual migrations. Rahim was going to go to New York and make a billion dollars on the stock market; Laith would marry a French supermodel; I would do something in London, which would involve a top hat and the Royal Albert Hall.

Sometimes, we’d park with other cars of other young men with the same bright idea. They would have more daring rebellions. Alcohol, amphetamines, pornography. Occasionally, someone might bring a sister or a female cousin. A stupid boy or two might stare or make a comment, but for most of us it merely threw into relief those obligations lurking on the horizon - a good career to support a good wife - and everything else would feel embarrassing.

It was not until the middle of July that we first encountered joyriders.

It was later than usual, past sunset. Laith had not anticipated that his grandfather would be visiting at the agreed pick-up time, and we could not reject an offer to join the patriarch for dinner, and then for tea, and then for evening prayers.

Driving away from the lights of the city, and without the usual guide of the setting sun, the highways beyond the streetlights became scary. I drove like a blind man, crawling as my front-seat copilot looked out for our main landmark: the billboard for the neighbourhood coming soon, with date palms and a phone number. It was going to be called Oasis, in English, as had already started to be a marker of prestige.

The lights came like a flash, I had no sense of them creeping up on me. We were in the dark, and then I could barely see. Dozens of cars, headlights glaring and music pounding, swam past us like a shoal of fish. They didn’t slow as they separated and then remerged ahead, we were barely an obstacle. Each car was stuffed full, with five heads all lined up in the backseat, or a torso hanging out of a window, howling at the night.

Of course we followed them. Following their guiding light, I sped up, and honked my horn, replied to with an array of honks and howls. They took us further out than we had been, past the coming-soon neighbourhoods, up to a grid that traversed a shallow hill. It was the largest gathering I had ever attended, maybe a hundred cars of seven men a piece, parked neatly up and swarming with life, but all eyes focused downhill, to a long, smooth stretch of highway.

“The King is coming!” one of our new co-conspirators informed me, as we pulled up immediately beside him. He offered me a bottle with which to celebrate the occasion, clear in a plastic bottle. Water, surely, I didn’t even think, not considering that it could be anything else. I took a deep drink.

“Careful, don’t be so brave!” he laughed, and grabbed the bottle back from me, right as I became aware it was not water. It burned my mouth and my throat, my eyes watered and I could feel hot blood filling my face. I spat what I could onto the ground, but the alcohol was already finding its way into my blood.

“Fucking hooligan.” I spat through the burning. My friends dragged me away, back to the car, but not to drive. Though I knew the king had nothing to do with it, we all shared a curiosity about what might happen.

We did not have to wait long. A car sped along the highway down below, met by cheers and honking horns, it must have been going over a hundred miles per hour. This impressed us enough, it wasn’t a sports car, it was something four-doored and sensible like mine, being driven like Formula 1. And then it skidded, and Laith grabbed my hand, both our eyes glued to what we were sure would be a devastating accident, nails digging half-moons into each other's flesh.

It was no accident. The car recovered, then spun a donut, and then skidded again, and then drove off into the sunset.

What a show! We cheered, and released each other’s hands, and then were once again blown away. Another car followed, crummier than the last, older than mine, but faster, and with more impressive tricks. Again, again, we lost count at seven. The crowd was impressed, but not raucous, certainly not acting like they’d driven there for this. Men still walked around, drank, smoked, laughed, danced to music.

When I saw the red Toyota Camry, I knew from the silence that this must be The King. And seconds later, I agreed with the title. He skidded and swirled like a dancer, moving the metal with a subtlety most people fail to achieve with their bodies. As a finale, he drove straight into the barrier, then grazed off as if propelled, shooting sparks up into the air.

The door - its red paint sanded down to grey steel - opened, and out stepped a man dressed in an ordinary thawb, and wearing sandals. I realised then that I had expected a race driver, in leathers and a helmet, with a company sponsor on his back.

He did not for a second acknowledge his crowd on the hill, looking towards the bottom of it, outside my line of sight. My body leaned without me asking, the whole crowd collectively strained for a glimpse of whatever was hidden from us.

Out stepped another man, his face obscured by distance and direction, who ran right into the driver’s arms. The driver kissed his lips and whispered something to him, then led him with a firm arm around him up towards the gathering that had by now become a party.

I was stunned, and looked around for others who felt the same. Why was there no outcry? Had we not all just seen a man kiss a man like a woman? My friends seemed to be the only people there with sense, and had already started to get back into my car.

I felt a tap on my shoulder as I was opening the driver's door, and I turned around. There stood the one I had decried as a hooligan, holding out a cigarette, “It should make you sober enough to drive,” he promised, as he placed it between my stunned, open lips, “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about the liquor. Are you leaving so soon?”

I nodded, dumb, accepting the cigarette and holding it between my teeth.

“Come on Wednesday, I’ll make it up to you.”

I said nothing to him, just hurried into my seat and started to drive. On the highway, Laith reached over and lit my cigarette, and I remembered to do up my seatbelt.

“I had no idea you could drive so fast in a shitbox like this,” Rahim broke the heavy silence, with his signature class, and I laughed. I did not at the time understand why I felt so relieved.

“You can’t and still have a car, those must be stolen.” Laith insisted.

“Or they’re rich.”

“If they were rich they’d have better cars.”

“Maybe it’s more fun with shitbox cars, maybe they just ditch them after.”

“Well I’m not ruining my shitbox car,” I finally joined in, the shake in my hand calming as it held my cigarette.

The danger of the night had made me forget that cigarettes were also forbidden, and not something I should do in the car.

“Or your shitbox life,” Laith added, “what if the police came?”

I dropped back my friends, and we were all in agreement. No matter how cool that might have been, we wouldn’t go back. It was dangerous, it was illegal, and besides, they were clearly all faggots.

On Wednesday, I drove my car up there alone, to the same place, at the same time. The lot was empty, I sat on top of my car and stared up at the sky. Out there you could see the stars, and the breeze along the side of the hill kept the metal pleasantly cool.

I woke up with dawn, disoriented but well rested, and drove home. My parents were not unused to me returning home at dawn, and as long as I was sober and joined them for prayers, they did not object. At the time I thought they were idiots.

I told nobody about my misadventure, embarrassed by whatever I had been hoping for.

The next time we saw the joyriders was another accident. We were driving home from a wedding, Laith, Rahim and I, the three musketeers as always. The groom was a cousin of a classmate, and deeply unpopular, so we were invited to make the numbers less worthy of gossip. By our departure we understood his unpopularity.

“The cake! Have you ever seen such a tiny cake? It was like a model in a toy.”

“And the juice was from a carton. One juice each, from a cartoon!”

Underwhelmed and stifling hot, we were happy for the distraction, and this time joined in with the honking and howling as we merged into the caravan speeding across the desert. We landed in another patch of future-city, this one flat, not on a hill. We followed everyone’s lead and sat up on my roof, watching the patch of asphalt with anticipation.

“You’ve dressed up for me.”

I turned towards the voice, and saw him there, with another plastic bottle of definitely-not-water in his hand, and a cup of orange in the other.

“We’ve been to a wedding.”

“Not yours, I hope.”

“A cousin.”

“You stood me up last time. I was crying.”

“Nobody was there.”

He cracked a smile, and I wanted to punch him for mocking me.

“Now I see why I didn’t recognize you. You’re new.”

“I’m just watching.”

“We don’t go to the same place, we don’t like to be arrested.”

I couldn’t argue with that. He explained there was a pattern, they had a dozen spots around the city, and ways of sharing, but wouldn’t tell me what, because I was yet to prove I wasn’t a policeman.

Rahim and Laith were engrossed in a discussion of another car and whether it was modified or an illegal import, so when I was invited to follow, I did.

“Is that why you haven’t told me your name? In case I’m police?” I asked him, and took the cigarette he offered.

“Suleiman,” he told me as he lit it, “but you can call me Suli.”

“Sharif.”

“I am going to drive today,” Suli told me, proud, as he showed me his car. It was different to the one last time, with dings and a large hole in the driver’s door where a lock should be.

“Is that safe?”

“Nothing is safe. It’s fun. I’ll be driving for you.”

“For me?”

“For your beautiful eyes.”

He didn’t touch me, but it felt like he had. I took a deep breath of smoke, and followed him wordlessly to his spot up near the front. He walked me to his friends, one handed me a glass of orange, which I sipped without question and found to be unadulterated full sugar soda. One by one they introduced themselves, with warm smiles and friendly greetings, and by the time I turned to look for him, Suli was gone.

But the cars had started, and where we were huddled gave me a perfect view. Up on a car, a man my age cheered louder than anyone else as a slick black sedan spun once, twice, thrice, then jumped down and ran to greet the driver. Two more went, and then I saw the broken lock.

Suli treated the road like a slalom, drifting this way and that, then spinning before turning back and driving the wrong way up the road. He finished off with a move I recognised, grinding up against the highway median so sparks flew into the dark night air. And then he turned again, and drove off out of view to let the main event take place.

In my stomach was a brief pit of disappointment, which disgusted me immediately. It dissipated as quick as it came, as he walked up beside me and offered me another cigarette.

“Did you like my sparkles?”

“I liked it all.”

“I would put the stars in the sky for you, my darling.”

I took his cigarette, and we watched as yet again, The King made everything else look like child's play.

“Who drove you?” Suli asked, as everyone started getting ready to leave.

“I drove. I have a car,” I took the chance to show off.

“Who did you drive?”

“My friends.”

“Just friends?”

“Just friends.”

“I would like to drive you next time, will you let me?”

“When’s the next one?”

“On Thursday.”

I agreed, and on Thursday, he collected me in yet another car.

“You’re the most beautiful boy I’ve seen.” he told me as soon as the door was closed.

I didn’t know what to say, except,

“Thank you.”

And as we drove, both smoking, he proposed.

Would I like to be his wife?

“I am a man.”

“My road-wife. The beautiful boy I drive for.”

His mouth was filthy, he made things I had always thought of as grave sin into irresistible poetry. By the time we arrived at yet another dusty lot, I had agreed to something I could only barely understand. My first kiss had an audience. He held me against him, his back against the door of the car. It was a declaration of something between love and possession.

If some people had their way, this story would end in tragedy. Suli would have died in a blazing car crash, and, distraught and deflowered, I would have begged Allah for forgiveness and devoted my life to his service, never to wed or have a family, having sacrificed my man-ness for a few weeks of carnal sin.

But that’s now how it ended. We had an amazing summer. We kissed, we fucked, we smoked, I never again drank alcohol, but he did. He taught me a few tricks in the wide open lanes, always alone, always sober. I cheered for him, hosted his friends at the cooler of juice and liquor that marked out his spot, proved his man-ness by leaning into his side and welcoming his kisses.

And then he emigrated for university, as men who wanted to be engineers did then. And then so did I, and then I met Ellena, and then Tabitha was born.

And now it’s another summer, nearly twenty years later, and my hands are once again sweaty on a wheel.

“I just don’t know! Boys are impossible,” Tabitha laments, “Dad?”

“Yes, darling?”

“When’s mum getting home tonight?”