ABSTRACT
Say hello to Zuzu, the most famous faggot in one of the world's oldest cities. He is an attractive middle-aged man who drinks too much. Dressed in a scarf, billowing shirt unbuttoned to the navel, and tight pants, Zuzu takes to the streets at night in search of the willing men he knows are there. He hangs out in the fashionable Abu Rumaneh quarter of Damascus, where the more Westernized, wealthier men are less likely to beat him up. There, he cruises sidewalk cafes and shouts imprecations to passing cars in a slurred bleat of a voice. Cars full of teen-aged boys pull up. The exhilaration of the hunt, and condescension of conquest, are evident in Zuzu's heightened theatricality and the car occupants' shrill laughter. But the cars move on. Zuzu spies a passerby. Mincing across four lanes of traffic, he shakes the man's hand and instinctively gropes him. The man looks embarrassed but does not resist. Another car full of men comes along, the two of them get in. Zuzu has connected.
