Finding My Son in the Madness of Cairo

It’s chaos down there, and he’s got the town by the balls.

In 1995, when I was just 21 years old, my ex-wife and I had a son and named him Alex. He was born with an ethereal beauty, like a serene and tiny elf creature; but as he grew into his second stage of infancy he was known in Portland for standing up in his stroller with a gigantic smile on his face and howling with joy as we pushed him down the center of the South Park Blocks. Now 26 years old, living on his own in the ancient metropolis of Cairo as a freelance English teacher, he retains his sylvan features. No longer given to outbursts of unbridled glee, Alex has followed the rest of our species down the road of disillusionment which leads to adulthood; but somewhere at his core is the happiest baby you ever met. I haven’t seen him in a little over four years, our last meeting overshadowed by an argument which inspired him to cut off communication. By the time he was ready to talk, he was in Egypt and I was living on the road; then COVID came and demolished much of the culture and society of the world, leaving us and everyone we know scrambling. Our first opportunity to celebrate our reconciliation was this February, the month of my own birth and that of his mother. Anya (16 years younger than me, 5 years older than him) and I were invited to perform a show in Germany, and for the first time since 2020 the show wasn’t canceled. Finding ourselves in Europe with a few thousand dollars in the bank, we made our way to Athens (the EU’s Mexico), and…