Their thin bodies, covered by soiled rags, gave them the look of mechanic apprentices, indentured servants in Africa, rolling around on the ground beneath car engines, sopping up oil. They tugged at my heartstrings.

But the one standing near my motorcycle, parked in front of an outdoor café, looked different.

His eyes were redder. His homeless uniform was a darker charcoal. He didn't gesture. He scowled. And though he was not tall, he could have been as old as 30.

"Scram! Beat it! I didn't ask for a motorcycle watchman," I said. "You will get no money from me." I turned back toward my table and took out my tape recorder, microphone and "Speak Lingala in Three Months," book. Night had come. I could relax.

The Perroqueet Bar is on the ground floor of a white, two-story building. From the street, customers walk across an open-air patio. Five or six plastic table and chair sets can be shifted or stacked when the music blares enough at midnight to draw a crowd to the dance-floor. A large tree has sprung up through the center of the terrace. It provides shade from the tropical sun. If you chose to escape the heat by going inside the bar, you pay an extra dime on each drink to help pay for air-conditioning. I like to sit at the edge of the patio, near the permeable fence that separates it from the street.

A rut in the street assures that passing cars slow down. They eye you. You eye them. Men cruising for young women sometimes pull over, park, and come in. Street vendors step in. Some have entire loads on their heads: women with slimy, whiskered, suckerfish draped over porcelain bowls, men with cardboard boxes taped into shelves containing Kleenex, screwdrivers, nail-clippers, candy and gum. Still others have limited inventory; they carry a pack of cigarettes and hawk one cigarette at a time.

I could see how much fun Kinshasa was before everyone spent all the money. I had just recorded a man on tape who explained how locals change the meanings of foreign words, which I could use for a BBC radio feature. In Japan, a 'ninja' is a martial arts fighter, but here they are scantily clad girls who stand in the streets after dark. They may speak little of the French colonial language, but they can say "fuck" in French, English, Italian, and Russian when they grab for men's members.

In Europe, Iveco manufactures heavy-duty trucks. But here an 'Iveco' is a woman who performs non-stop in bed. 'Prostate' is a cancer that strikes older men. Here it is a new Zaire bank note, worth about twenty cents. The bills were issued by the last dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, soon after he was diagnosed. The connection wasn't lost on black-market currency traders. Dying man, dying money.

The linguistic laboratory allows me to forget my troubles. It flows into the guitar music, which is the real reason why I came to this town.

"Hey Chris. There is a guy out here who is about to steal your bike, man!" said Vic, a Congolese-American airplane pilot. I dashed the 40 feet to the street, where I saw an adult shegey hovering over the vehicle. "He is gonna take something off it," said Vic, over my shoulder.

"Don't worry," I said. "It weighs 500 pounds and he would need a wrench to remove any parts."

"How do you know he doesn't have one?" said Vic.

"He looks desperate," I said. "Since he can't eat it, he would have already sold it.Right?" But I looked again into his wide red eyes. He stared at me. He didn't move. "Scram!" I said. "Beat it. Get away from this moto!"

Vic and I walked back across the patio to our table. We shared disgust of current dictator Laurent Kabila. Then we boasted of how much better life is in his newly native Texas and my native Michigan. We lacked the guts to admit that we both had gambled and lost by coming here. Neither of us felt generous enough to buy the other a beer. Money is hard to come by, but I could offer him a ride home on my Honda 900.

The same eyes met mine as we walked again to the vehicle in the street. The overgrown shegey stood just five feet away. "Scram!" I said. "Beat it." I was powerless so I tried to sound tough.

I put my tape recorder and microphone into the vinyl pouch attached to the rear fender of my motorcycle. I asked Vic the way to his house while he lifted his leg over the seat and put his feet on the pegs. Then I key-started the engine and released the clutch. Could this all have taken more than 30 seconds? It was long enough.

The ride to Vic's across the Boulevard du 30 Juin is about a half-mile, and takes several minutes. I was driving a machine prepared to cruise at a hundred. But the road wouldn't let me go beyond about twenty. Slabs of concrete poured during the prosperous 1960's are now cracked, pushing up and down like ocean waves. Other roads, repaved since then, have more potholes than covered asphalt. Vic was heavy. The road was bumpy. We moved slowly.

We got there in one piece and parked the bike. But not everything had made the trip. The back pouch was wide open. The recorder was there, but not the microphone. The pouch is too deep for it to have fallen out.

I said good-bye to it quickly, for I have become used to parting with many of my belongings. Zaireans have taken every bungee cord I have left attached to the Honda. They have taken cassettes from my house, a necklace, condoms, a stopwatch and a camera flash. In other places I have lost a short-wave radio, a combination lock and shoes. "Friends" have swindled me out of hundreds of dollars that I had given to rent a house, and get motorcycle plates and insurance. The friendly secretary to the information minister told her boss that I tried to bribe her several times, even though she snapped up the small bills she had asked me for.

I have learned that what is mine is not really mine. What I say is not really what I said.

But this time I know who stole what.

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