This is a story about class, music, grief, and the dangers of getting exactly what you want. Names have been changed to protect the living... and the dead. Reader discretion is advised.
Endnotes are included for readers unfamiliar with some of the Arabic terms, places, and cultural references. They're best read afterward so they don't interrupt the story.
Let me tell you about my favorite insult in Egyptian slang: bee’a. Bee’a is an Arabic word that means “environment.” However, Egyptians often use it to connote low-class. Not in the economic sense, but in the sense of loud and tacky behavior. Street rough. Shaabi. It can border on lowlife.
Bee’a is also associated with a poor sense of fashion—clashing colors on cheap microfiber fabrics that make your underarms smell like onions.
Because this word isn’t an expletive, it’s a useful way to insult a person or thing without breaking propriety. So you could say “il-wad da bee’a,” or “il-mazeeka dee bee’a.” (That guy is bee’a. That music is bee’a.) Or, as I once said to my musician boyfriend Adam—my “husband” in public—after he falsely insisted I was cheating on him, “inta bee’a.” (You are bee’a.)
Now THAT I don’t recommend, no matter how deserved it is—deploying it in the second person got me beaten to within an inch of my walking ability.
Moving on…
