I’m on lobby duty with P-Brain and Herr-Lippi in attendance. Its early evening and our guys in Jeddah take over the couches in the lobby of the hotel, to schmooze and gripe for hours.
Lynn Barkley and Jerry Lovell come down the stairs, excitedly carrying their empty zam-zam jugs. These are five-gallon plastic containers, labeled as zam zam and a bunch of Arabic script. Jerry broke the code on getting laid in Malaysia and Indonesia. Zam-zam water is the holy water of Islam, coming from the official well that Mohammed drank from before ascending to Heaven. Unavailable to most Muslims, zamzam is worth more than the blood of Christ, its “worth its weight in come,” as Jerry would say… adding “life is good!”
Lynn and Jerry have snagged a trip to K.L. tomorrow, Kuala Lumpur, where the beer is flowing, and the women fuck your brains out for a five-gallon jug of zam zam water. Jerry, Lynn and the rest of the guys put the empty containers in their flight bags.
After checking into their rooms in K.L., they will fill the jugs up with ordinary tap water from their bathrooms and head out on their eternal quest for LBFM’s, Little, brown fucking machines. The zam-zam scam is alive and well in Malaysia.
“Lucky bastards,” Mark says. “I haven’t gotten a layover in K.L. yet!”
“Still playing with yourself, Rabbi?” asks Lenny Craig.
“No, Lenny” I say, “Fm non-hormonal… I was startin’ to worry about why Fm not jerking off as much as I used to, but I discovered the reason. When I lay down now (pointing at my huge gut), I don’t see my pecker anymore…out of sight, out of mind…it’s over the horizon,” I conclude.
Lenny advises, “Rabbi, my philosophy is very simple. If I wake up and I see a fist in my bed, I fuck it!
“Mark: “I have to pour beer on my hand to get my date drunk.”
Schwarmer-time in Jeddah is the social event of the evening, and timing is critical.
The group would meet in the lobby of the Sofitel at 6:30pm, allowing for the fifteen minute walk to Jaw’s café, gave us forty minutes to eat between evening prayers.
“Great White” is the patriarch of the Turkish family that works the Schwarmer stand. He would greet us on the sidewalk with a big smile, his gleaming teeth and juicy gums extended impossibly forward somehow, giving the place it’s name.
Every evening, as we marched in and took our positions, Charlie Pickles’ nasal twang would sing-song out, “Two chicken Schwarmers, extra pickles….Pepsi.”
By the second month of the Hajj, all the Turkish brothers, Stinky, Reeky, Jaws and Achmed were singing along with Charlie (and the rest of us):
“Two chicken Schwarmers, extra pickles….Pepsi.”
Charlie Pickles, of course, became Charlie “extra pickles", or just plain “extra pickles.”