Night of The Big Shots

By Twilly Cannon

Saad and I crossed back to the hotel and checked out the Bab al-Marah disco on the top floor. It cost us 25 dinars each and a search for weapons to enter. It is a semi-tacky disco inferno right out of Saturday night. Immediately upon entry one must go either left or right to pass around this 30 foot diameter translucent cylinder. It extends from floor to ceiling and is lit with soft red lights.

The main room is about 80 foot on a side with a stage up front. The ceiling is a shiny metallic lattice forming 2 x 2 foot boxes. Alternating boxes are lit with green lamps -- in Iraq the color of Islam and the regime.

This is where the Basra big shots hang out. Tonight, as usual, the clientele is virtually all male. The only women present--besides the professional dancers--hug the periphery to minimize attention. Needless to say, every one of them is escorted.

There are about a hundred men here this evening, half in their twenties to thirties, half older. Most of them are wearing western-style business suits. I estimate about 20 percent of the club is wearing traditional garb. Saad and I cross the length of the room to find a table with decent acoustics. Many eyes follow our progress. We don't fit in. It takes a long time to get a waiter.

Saad orders us a couple beers and a mezze plate while I survey the scene. The waiters are practically running from table to table. Over to my right one brings a table full of older gents a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label. The recipient turns the bottle over and reads off the bottom to ensure its genuineness. Most likely it was looted from Kuwait. Seeing the correct mark he smiles, nods to the waiter, and shows his companions. The waiter fills their water glasses four fingers deep, adds a couple ice cubes, then tops it off with bottled water "from the immortal Tigris". These drinks disappear at an impressive rate.

The band is playing. Six guys backup with an Arab Vic Damone out front. It sounds terrible to me and Saad confirms it. "It’s a pathetic Iraqi pop song that's on the radio now", he tells me. After a couple more selections the singer sits down and his backup breaks into a traditional instrumental. Saad assures me, "now this is real music”. He smiles. Soon another singer comes out front. He's wearing a white dinner jacket and white slacks. He takes the microphone--an 18-inch George Jetson model. Clasping it in both hands he croons to the frontline tables.

A sign behind him, in Arabic, advises us "Don't Spread Money". Evidently its customary in these parts to send requests up to the band, after which the singer will "greet" the table. The table responds to the greeting by "spreading money--literally throwing it on the stage in ostentatious quantities. Nearby tables follow suit, trying to outdo the other. Usually this leads to shouting and stamping. Sometimes it leads to fighting and, on rare occasion, to shooting.

The second singer sits down as the band continues. A plump female dancer comes out on stage. She's wearing a square-yoked orange dress about knee length. It has puffy shoulders and a ruffed bosom. I find this interesting because the near-universal female garb in Basra is the formless black habbaya. US soldiers in Saudi refer to women dressed this way as BMO's--Black Moving Objects.

Our dancer is barefoot and she skips around the stage in large looping circles. Frequently she stands with her back to the audience and does this slow pelvic roll. The music quickens, she turns to face the audience and breaks into a vigorous shoulder shimmy. Her timing is matched by the beat of the tabla, in this case being produced by a Yamaha synthesizer.

The dancer stops her shimmy and turns to face the audience. She walks forward with undulating hips. She's holding her two hands as if holding a pistol and snapping her fingers one across the other in a scissoring motion. This seems to really excite the table full of young drunk men to my right. The dozen or so of them break into this multi-part rhythmic clapping. "Very beautiful", Saad tells me, "When done correctly it can be very beautiful." He goes on to say that the finger action is traditional--dancers would snap their fingers in counterpoint to the dance.

The whole performance, judging from the audience reaction, is either licentious or erotic, but in either case I don't get it. Saad explains. "You have to realize that, to the men here, these dancers are viewed as the upper end of prostitution." “Do they actually have sex with the men for pay”, I ask. "With the biggest of the big shots they can get this night", he tells me. A second, older dancer joins onstage and the performance is repeated. The music ends as the band takes a break.

When the music resumes men from the tables lurch up to the dance floor. They form into pairs and, holding hands, dance in a slow, dipping shuffle circling to the right. Every few shuffles is punctuated by a faint kick. The men will twirl their worry beads or the end of his tie.

Soon these all-male pairs assemble into a long blithely smiling line can-canning in slow motion. The two female dancers return to the dance floor. Everyone is circling counter-clockwise at different speeds. There is no contact or words between the men and women but I see a number of the men are sneaking looks at them. The proximity is obviously stimulating. The bass drummer from the band comes out on the floor, mallet in one hand and a curved beating stick in the other. He plays two different tempos.

My attention to the dance floor is distracted by the entrance, to my right, of a man in a military uniform. A Ba'ath Party official and, judging from the reaction of fellow diners, a really big shot. All eyes are on him, discreetly, as he makes his way across the room with his bodyguard close behind. He goes over to the table that received the Black Label earlier. They scramble to their feet. Once the new guest is seated, the table follows. His bodyguard goes over to a nearby table--already occupied--and sits down. The occupants fall silent but otherwise pretend he's not there. I see him open his briefcase and check his Tek-9. The big shot orders an orange juice which encourages several of his table companions to stop slamming their Scotch and order juices as well.

A short time later, juice untouched, the Party member rises to leave. His table mates leap to their feet. A couple caught unaware lurch upwards due to their girth and consumption. As he and his bodyguard depart the table congratulates itself on the visit and returns to the Scotch. I watch them exit while a man at the next table re-arranges the position of a 9mm pistol in his briefcase.

Saad and I return to our rooms.

Twilly Cannon has hung out in pubs in hostile and non-hostile zones around the world.