bowie.txt

So I was working at this data entry place. they scanned documents for legal cases and people "coded" them (so it would appear on the screen, and they'd enter something "memo from fred to barney on such-and-such a date", et). I had risen from temp to shift supervisor.

One of the people I was friendly with there was a guy named Aden. He was from Somalia. Originally a banker, he fled in the late 80's when the Somali Civil War was getting going; he said a bunch of warlords put a price on his head, so he left.

One day Aden requests a few extra days off, because a friend of his from Somalia and her husband was coming to visit. OK, whatever, dude. Have fun.

Some time later he comes into work with a sheaf of pictures. (In the old days, see, you'd get photos developed on this special paper.) He asks if I'd like to see them; they were taken at his home when his friend came to visit.

Sure, dude. So I grab the pics and start flipping through them. The first few are his kids sitting around the living room.

Then.

There's a picture of a stunningly beautiful woman. She's instantly recognizable. "Dude, your friend from Somalia is Iman? The supermodel?"

"Yes", Aden says, "she is a model."

I flip to another picture.

David Bowie is sitting on Aden's couch at his humble little Springfield, Virginia home.

"Her husband is a musician", he says.

"YES, YES HE IS."

"Have you heard of him?"

"ADEN! ADEN THAT IS DAVID. FUCKING. BOWIE. And HE'S AT YOUR HOUSE. ARE YOU SHITTING ME."

So Aden told me about how he'd been friends with Iman since forever, and they met up every couple of years and hung out and talked about the old country and stuff. And how Bowie was gracious and smart and funny and never had a problem staying at the house of a friend of his wife.