Ode to Lata (10 page)

While my mother launched into an untimely and clichéd reasoning of the truly faithful, reminding me that one went to mosque to be with God and not other people, I suppressed something else; that all these reasons served me well when the truth of it might have been that I was simply afraid they wouldn’t understand the real me.  The boy-lover.  The homosexual.  That because the interpretation of the faith was so traditional, so orthodox, there wouldn’t be any of the little cracks for a homosexual to slip through. It was in East Africa after all, with their sons – these boys that had grown into men and had since reared families – that I had first learned the pleasures of a man’s cock and my place in the actuarial tables of sexuality.

“Are you going to help me or not?” I asked.

“Ali, listen to me! 
Nothing
is going to happen to him.  I’ll go to mosque, and I’ll put a
Satado
for him, okay?  I promise you.  But you know, you must also promise me in return that you will look after yourself.  And that all this will change, you know?”

“It will.”

“It
has
to!” she said, tsking away regretfully.  “Ali, what do you see in this boy?  Why are you acting so crazy?”

“Can we not get into this right now?”
I love him, Mummy, I love him!

“Okay, okay.  Don’t you worry anymore.  Everything will be alright, you’ll see.  Everything will be just perfect.”

I quieted down and controlled myself from crying further.  What was it about mothers?  They could comfort you in a way nobody else could.  Perhaps because they knew how, long before the child’s memory.

Everything would indeed be alright now that she had agreed to do this.  I didn’t know if I had faith in God, but I certainly had faith in my mother.  According to her – and as explained by the faith – initiating a
Satado
invoked the prayers of every man, woman and child in Mombasa and God had to listen.  Concede.  Give in.  And so, for the following week, while Richard lay jaundiced in the I.C.U., the entire Ismaili community in Mombasa, unbeknownst to them, prayed for his life.

And my freedom.

GREEN

I hate green.

Green was the color of the shawl they draped my father in during the first half of the burial ceremony at the mosque.

He was just lying there, so still, his eyes closed.  His nostrils stuffed with cotton wool.  I thought that there was something terribly wrong with that.

How would he breathe?

When my mother instructed me to kneel down and touch his feet, as is customary, I felt terrified that he would awaken and then he would be very, very angry with me.  The
Mukhi
, a priest of the local community, sat on the other side of my father and awaited our prayer of absolution, upon which he dipped his right hand into the bowl of holy water and sprinkled it onto my father’s stony face. 

My father didn’t wake up, and I felt relieved.  I had never seen him look so at peace with either himself or the others around him.

When it was time to carry him away, a woman’s melodramatic voice cut through the air and led the rest of the congregation into a relentless dirge.  Pallbearers carried his body out of the mosque, the men now taking over, and my mother started to wail as if she had suddenly realized that he was forever gone.  Her agony at that being the last she would see him, seemed to rack her body and spirit in quite the same way that he had when he’d been alive.

According to Islamic law, women are not permitted to participate in the final part of the liturgy for the dead – the burial.  And thankfully so.  Had we been the Hindus we had been converted from generations ago, I’m quite sure that my mother wouldn’t have hesitated to become
Sati
and fling herself onto his pyre.

I had started to cry too.  Not because they were taking him away, but because, as is typical of a bewildered five-year-old, his mother and everyone else was crying.  Although I don’t recall asking my mother about him, I’m sure I must have.  Thankfully, there were no stories of Daddy having gone on some long journey, never to return but always looking down benevolently upon us from some distant star.  I don’t know if this was because my mother was too young herself to summon such pretenses.  It had been made clear to me, as clear as it can be to a five-year-old, that Daddy had been murdered by that “other woman.”  Perhaps I thought he was gone again and would return eventually, unpredictably as was his style, only with a bloodstained shirt this time.  No need to worry.  He would be back.

Some time after, I held that green cashmere shawl.  It carried the musty smell of the frangipanis they had strung around his neck and the incense burnt by his side.  I even held the stiletto that had robbed the life from him.

Blood strewn all over the room of his mistress.  The mistress who they had claimed had put something in his food and cast a spell on him.  What witchery that Kala-Singhi must have done to trap him?  What
gangha?
A few drops of menstrual discharge in the cooking and the man would be pussy-whipped for life. Six fatal stabs.  And she claimed he had done it to himself in a jealous rage at discovering her with another man.  Not once.  Not twice.  But six times.  Six times he had been enraged enough the plunge the dagger into his own breast.  They bought it, naturally.  Literally.  She was set free.  Money talks.  Chai can silence all the mouths.  Tip any scale to one party’s advantage.  Court battles cost too much, so poor Parin, now a single mother, had been quietly relieved of justice.

Nothing could bring him back.

I nestled that stiletto in my little hands. The knife was about the size of my palm.  I don’t know how we had gotten possession of it.  There was no blood on it.  No traces of rich crimson aged into a burnt sienna on its blade.  Only the cold glint of the steel wiped clean of the life it had ebbed from him.

And the green of its barrel.

I hate green.

HEAVEN

Heaven has terrible acoustics.  All you hear is the thump, thump, thump of the music.  You can’t discern the lyrics.  You can barely even make out the melody.  Only the thump, thump, thump.  And you wonder – no, you know, everyone in the room is drugged sufficiently not to mind.

Frankie Knuckles is spinning his house groove.  Shirtless bodies everywhere.  Gyrating.  Stomping.  Hands flailing in the air.  Attitude to the hilt.  Beautiful people.  There is no space on the dance floor and they don’t need any.  No one is trying to show off any moves.  This isn’t the seventies.  All anyone is interested in exhibiting is his anatomy.

You feel excommunicated, not built enough to shed clothing and be admitted into their sanctuary.  Not intimidated enough either to stay home, cruise on-line and give up on this aspect of the lifestyle.  So here you are.  In the place to be.  Hovering around the edge of the dance floor.  Gripping your cocktail like it is a lover.  Drinking.  To tear down inhibitions.  To feel more attractive.  To feel included.

You’re looking.  Searching.  Hoping tonight you won’t have to go home alone.  Or find solace in the darkness of some sex club.  That some body will partake in your flesh.  You’ve prepared yourself with so much anticipation and now stand in front of your Gods.

You are ready to be offered.

Across the room, I find Adrian talking to a tall, well-built black man.  Kitty, our chubby Chinese friend with a penchant for stringy tank tops and astonishingly tight pants, is sipping some fruity concoction through a straw, focused on finding other Asian men to connect with. I glide over to the group, having tired of the mental masturbation in the room. Adrian’s new acquaintance introduces himself as Noah.  I start off with the Biblical jokes and ask him if he has an ark stored away somewhere.

“You never know,” he says, attempting wit.  “I just might.”

“Well, where is it, Noah?  We’re ready to board.”

He laughs out loud and steps back in mock shock.  “
You
are
b-a-a-d!
”

“You have no idea,” I say, grinning.

Adrian throws his arm around me proudly.

“You’ve got your two of a kind right here, Noah,” I say. “All your work clearly cut out.”

He shakes his head in disbelief.  He thinks I’m a riot and he’s damn right. I sure are.  One big fucking riot.  I feel powerful now, in word, if not in brawn.  Muscle of the mind.  Wit abounds.  Even Hercules here, with two hours of daily gym workouts under his belt, is no match for a razor-sharp tongue. And it gets even easier after a couple of cocktails.   

But I lose interest in him.  His lack of a retort disappoints me.  Bores me.  He looks embarrassed.  I think him weak.  Unable to stand up to me.  To tell me that the ark was docked right outside but that he had doubts I could sustain the stormy journey.

You see, my idea of a perfect pick-up line has never been, “Hey, are you having fun tonight?” or “So, what’s your name?” or “You’re cute,” but “Come here, baby.  I’ll make your life pure hell.”

The last time someone had been nice enough to ask me if I was having fun, I took one look at him and, diffused by his cordiality, said, “I was.  Until now.”  Nobody was looking for nice guys in the bars, and any one that hasn’t figured that out is either going to get his heart broken or remain in a constant state of perplexity. Everyone wants someone tormented, someone complicated and a bit dangerous.  Wants sparks to fly across the room, long brooding glances full of lust, to make them feel like quarry being slowly snared.  Not some accountant type who wants to know about your dreams and tells you all about the future he plans on sharing with the man he hopes to find tonight.

Excusing myself, I start to head for the bathroom.  “And if the floods come,” I impart before turning completely away.  “Don’t leave without me.”

In the bathroom I bump into Roy, whom I haven’t seen in months.  His hair is still bleached blonde and he’s doing his classic Eartha Kitt purr at some porno star zipping himself up at the urinal.  I can never get used to the garish contrast of the gold in his hair with his dark Latin face.

He sees me, throws open his arms open and shrieks, “My sister!  Oh, my sister in crime!  I’ve missed you!”

The porno star rolls his eyes at us and slips past.

Air kisses and hugs. We tell each other how fabulous we both look.  We’re young.  We’re negative – or at least uninformed otherwise. And the direct deposit has replenished our bank account hours before.  What more can you ask for?

“And how’s the love life?” he says, winking and slapping my butt.

I shrug. “Alright.”

“Hmm,” he says, shaking his head.  “I know that look.  Men!  They’re all pigs,” he says, throwing disapproving glances at the men around us and conveniently disregarding our own gender.  “Gay or straight, it doesn’t matter, they all still think with their dicks!”

“You know it.”

“We should’ve been born lesbians, no?  Gir-r-r-l, we’d be harvesting eggs by now.”

Laughing, I offer him some of my Stoli, and he confesses between sips that he is going to get some China.

“China?” I ask.

“Blow,” he says, nudging me.

Jesus!  Whoever did coke anymore?  So eighties!

“Well, wait for me,” I say, breezing past the ridiculously long line of men too shy to use the urinal.  Meanwhile Roy blots his face in the mirror with the special absorbent paper he carries in his wallet.

Stationed before the urinal, I force myself to release.  My eyes fix upon the flier for an Asian dance club taped against the wall.  I try to concentrate on it to ward off the stares of the men standing behind.  It’s like they’re all waiting to witness my failure at this most human of tasks, one they have such a problem performing. I think there must always be a certain humiliation served to the tormented butch men waiting for the stall when a femme glides past them with confidence and pisses away with superior glee…
I’ll show you who’s “on top!”

I try to ignore the man standing next to me who, not subtle enough to use his peripheral vision, is staring directly at my cock.  I’m frozen.  Glaring at him, I hiss, “Do you mind!” and as if electrocuted, his head jerks up and he looks away.

“Huh!  Not much to look at anyway,” he mutters.

Club Asia… waterfalls… psss… psss… They are all trash… Goddamn trash with their big bulky bodies… Show them who the real man is… Go ahead and piss… Piss… Piss… For Asians and their lovers… Piss… Piss… Aaaah!

Zipped up, I follow Roy to the bar and watch him sashay his way through the clamor perched around it.  That’s club expertise right there.  Knowing how to steer through the crowds at the bar and get that cocktail.  Men everywhere with water bottles tucked into their jeans are running back and forth from the bathroom, refilling them – on Ecstasy and in need of more water than an evening’s allowance can support.  These days the E-boys are the only ones who look blissfully happy.  I can see Adrian talking to Noah in the same spot but Kitty has vanished, and I hope they don’t come looking for me.

Roy leans forward at the bar and is quickly noticed by the bartender, a muscular, shirtless Tom Cruise look-alike. We have all lusted after him at one point or another.  So typical, this lusting after bartenders in a gay club, as if they have been handpicked precisely to set off a hormonal bomb in our bodies and make us drink more out of frustration.  An average looking bartender working alongside him graces me with his attention. 
Oh well, saved me an extra dollar on the tip.