Meatspace (27 page)

‘What the fuck, dude?’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Look at it, dude. Everywhere. This never happens in India. Or if it does, then I don’t know about it.’

‘Mate, what are you doing?’

‘Trying to get laid, dude.’

‘Any success?’

‘No. It’s like they hate India or something. Every time I go and try to put my penis in someone’s mouth they slap it away. I think the last girl bruised it.’ He points downwards. When I don’t look, he grabs my face and I pull away.

I tug at his arm and pull him out of the room. In the corridor, the lambada couple has moved on to doggy style. She is crouched on the floor as he mounts her from behind, his belly hanging over the curve of her bottom. She looks up at us and smiles. He offers me a thumbs up. Why is everyone giving me the thumbs up? Is that sex party code? She opens her mouth suggestively, looking at me, and reaches up to pull at my boxers, so I back away.

Kitab 2 notices her looking at me, and the guy pounding her from behind winks at us both so he reaches down and de-pants me. I’m too shocked to react and don’t fully comprehend what’s happening till I feel a rough hand tug at my penis. It’s Kitab 2’s hand guiding my cock to the girl’s mouth. She’s jerking forward with each pounding and eventually her mouth finds the tip of my involuntarily erect penis. I punch Kitab 2’s hand away and push him back.

She starts blowing me furiously and I pull out and back away but my penis pulls forward because it wants this. I fight my horny impulses and turn my hip till the woman bangs her nose on my hip and it flings out a trail of snot. She smiles up at me. I bat her hand away and grimace at her snotty mouth. Kitab 2 pushes me out of the way and pulls his penis towards the woman’s mouth, but the guy pounding at her pushes him back. The girl helps him. They both push Kitab 2 till he falls into me.

Kitab 2’s penis explodes with white effluvium, beading into the thick dreads of his pubes and down his legs, dribbling dangerously near my foot, which is underneath him. Kitab 2 convulses with satisfaction.

While I push Kitab 2 off me, the couple change position and the girl straddles her man and rides him hard.

‘My turn, dude,’ Kitab 2 says to them both, holding up a condom like it’s a badge and he’s with the sex FBI. They ignore him. He says it again, louder, more insistent. ‘My TURN, dude.’ The copulating couple turns to him and they shake their heads.

‘Looks like you’re done there, Gunga Din,’ the old man says.

‘Racist,’ I say. Kitab 2 looks at me like I’m embarrassing him. ‘Fucking milk bottles.’

The girl doubles her rhythm and we fade away from their collective sex brain periphery.

I’m lying on the floor, stifling a laugh at Kitab 2’s rejection, when a larger lady approaches and looks down at me. ‘What an invitation,’ she says, pointing at the involuntary erection I have. She sits on my chest with her back to me. I feel the gristle of her vagina against my belly button. ‘This is okay, yes?’ she says.

‘No,’ I reply.

She takes the condom out of my hand and tears it open.

‘Seriously. No, thanks,’ I say.

She turns back to face me as I wriggle into a half sitting up position, resting on my elbows. ‘What? Not to your tastes?’

‘I’m not here for the sex.’

Kitab 2 turns to us.

‘What the hell, dude? Why do you get everything I don’t?’

‘You up for it, then?’ the lady says to him.

‘Not with you,’ Kitab 2 says. Kitab 2 thrusts his condom at her as she looks at me trying to get away from her. She drops the condom on my feet and presses down on my thighs as she stands up, bum first, arching herself into a right angle. It’d be sexy if I wasn’t terrified of human contact. And if I didn’t have a girlfriend. I have a girlfriend now, I think. A girlfriend. I scramble out from under her and stand up, shielding my involuntarily erect penis with my boxer shorts.

‘That was supposed to be for me,’ Kitab 2 says and thwacks my arm with the back of his hand.

I pull Kitab 2 into the toilet. Inside the toilet, the candles smell like incense and it makes me feel sick. My mum used to burn incense every morning in the kitchen, the room beneath my bedroom and I’d know that it was time for school. I hated school so the smell of incense automatically makes me feel like I’m 20 minutes away from getting punched in the ribs.

‘Why are you telling the internet that you and I are at a sex party? You do realise we have the same name, right? You do know people can see stuff when you put it online, right? I thought you wanted to find a job.’

‘Chill, dude. Who cares? How many other Kitab Balasubramanyam’s are there in the world? Maybe everyone will think it is like John Smith in India.’

‘We’re not in India, mate. We’re here. Where I live. And you’re associating me with you. All the time. Saying we’re going to sex parties. What would my publisher think? What would my readers think?’

‘Blah, blah, dude. All you’re thinking about is yourself. And your fans. You’re not Salman Rushdie. You’re not Mick Jagger. You’re just Kitab Balasubramanyam. From London. Fuck you.’

I’m not a violent man.

That is my proviso for when I grab Kitab 2 by the neck and force him against the toilet cistern. He looks panicked. He did not expect that. I hold him for what feels like hours, but it’s probably 5 seconds before I remember myself and let him go. He grabs his neck and looks at me. He punches me in the ribs. The smell of incense burning my nose makes it all the more poignant. It doesn’t hurt as much as shock me. He doesn’t seem the punching type. I don’t react because in the cramped bathroom, his pullback means the punch is more symbolic than effective. I look at him and shake my head.

‘Why don’t you get it?’ I say.

‘Get what?’

‘I don’t want to be your friend. I just want to be left alone.’

Kitab 2 looks at me with widening eyes, then cries. He holds his hands to his face. There’s a knock on the door.

I open the door a crack and peer round.

‘No sex in the bathroom,’ the woman from reception says, her blue eyes wide with concern.

‘We’re just talking. Sorry. Pep talk and all that. First timers,’ I say, by way of excuse.

‘Get out of here, dude, you’re hurting me,’ Kitab 2 suddenly says behind me. ‘Ow, seriously, get off me.’

‘What is going on in there?’ the door lady asks.

‘Nothing. We’re just talking.’

‘No, we’re not.’

I reach out behind me and try to punch Kitab 2 quiet, but I hit air and something crunches down on the fleshy bit of my wrist. I spin round and Kitab 2 is biting me as hard as he can. I wrench my hand out but it hurts, it’s clamped. I squeal a throaty but high-pitched AGHGAG. I judo chop Kitab 2 in the neck and he releases me. I rub my hand.

The door is thumped open.

One of the burly naked men from the writhing girl room, the one I’d clocked for being better built than his chubby naked cohorts, grabs me and pulls me out of the toilet by my hair. It happens too quickly to process it but I fall into his frame and smack my cheek against something hard – I hope his hip bone. He reaches down and pulls me up with fists in my armpits. I hear the door lady ask Kitab 2 if he is okay. He is fine, he says. Scared though. I am pulled towards the stairs and ushered down to the lobby. The door is opened and I’m pushed out into a slightly frosty September night. I bang on the door as it closes. I want my stuff. I need my stuff. Kitab 2 has gone too far. I wonder whether I can call the police. Except, my phone’s in there. So’s my wallet. I bang on the door again.

I see the light crack in the glass so I ready myself in fighting stance in case the naked hard man with the fists is coming out. The door opens and my things are thrown at me. A shoe lands on my bare toes and I yelp. The door slams shut. It’s cold so I throw myself into my clothes and go to pick up my wallet and phone off the ground when the door opens again and a completely naked Kitab 2, bundling his clothes into his crotch, is pushed out as well.

He falls back into me and I push him forward. He spins round and sees me.

‘Fuck you, Kitab, you fucking idiot,’ I say.

‘They threw me out. I accidentally tried it on with that girl. I thought she was part of it, dude.’

‘I don’t care, Kitab. I’m going home. I never want to see you again.’

He starts babbling as he throws his jumper over his head but I’m not listening. My chest is pumping, the anger has manifested. I’m shaking. If I don’t walk away from Kitab 2, I might cry. The stomach churns of grief and anxiety peel through me. I need to keep moving. I jump up and thump a sign that says ‘No through road’ with the vigour of a thousand high-fives. I decide to walk home because it’s a nice night and Aziz would have said, when you need a pilgrimage to have a long hard look at yourself, why take the bus?

aZiZWILLKILLYOU episode 14 Aziz vs Teddy Baker
[posted 17 September, 15:21]

Detective Alverton leant back in his chair and burst out laughing. He stood up and held his belly. I didn’t know whether I was supposed to laugh too so I was doing awkward smiles the whole time, trying to work out if this was a maniacal ‘I am going to fuck you’ laugh or a ‘you are fucking funny’ laugh. Either way, this was getting to the point whether he either arrested me or sent me to the pub with a pat on the back. I was considering calling my brother to sort me out a lawyer or something. There was some fucked up atmosphere in this place.

He eventually calmed the fuck down, sat back down at the desk and looked at me. He shook his head.

‘You’re a funny guy,’ he said. ‘I like you.’

‘So what’s happening now?’

‘Oh, right … yeah, sure …’ Detective Alverton slid a file over to me. I opened it. It was mugshots of some serious-looking white dudes, all thick necks and evil eyes dogging me up. ‘Recognise any of these people?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, they were the guys shooting at you in the train.’

‘Oh right, okay.’

I looked at the photos of these shooters. They were generic angry white men with neck tattoo types. I shrugged. I didn’t recognise any of them.

‘Who are these guys?’ I asked.

‘Oh, it’s quite complicated. Sterling’s a banker, whose investment portfolio included a complex of car factories. He ran the business into the ground and collected a bonus for selling the land because it was the site of a Civil War battle. Anyway, all these families lost all their money. And so, one of the people, this guy here …’ Detective Alverton pointed to someone weedier than the others, his eyes sunken into his face, greying thinning hair hanging on for dear life on the top of his dome. ‘He lost everything. His wife died of stress. She was pregnant. So he must have flipped. Turns out, his cousin’s a capo in a local crime mob so they decided to kidnap the guy’s baby and hold her to ransom.’

‘Not the best plan.’

‘No, especially seeing as the nanny thought they were immigration and ran.’

‘Really? How do you know?’ I said, sitting back, my arms folded.

‘Because she was also being chased by immigration officers when she started running,’ Detective Alverton said, leaning forward and shaking with barely restrained mirth.

‘That shit cray.’

‘That shit cray indeed.’

‘So, in all, we’re lucky.’

‘No, you guys are idiots. The baby’s lucky. Because, hey, no one needs to be kidnapped, whatever age.’

‘Cool, so what happens now?’

‘Nothing, we let you go, you go. We can call you as witnesses when this case goes to trial. I’ve got your official statement.’

‘That’s it? What was the good cop/bad cop thing about?’

‘There’s only one of me …’

‘Okay, the bad cop shit.’

‘Oh, you know … fun. It’s been a slow night and Detective Martinez is with the actual punks who kidnapped the girl.’

‘So, you drew the short straw?’

‘If you call a couple of heroic fucktards in leotards the short straw, then yes. Yes, I did.’

‘Fair play, mate.’

‘I’m sorry – indulge me, I gotta ask … what made you think this was okay?’ He laughed.

It turned out Detective Alverton was alright. Had loads of stories about weird New Yorkers, like the guy he arrested for shitting in envelopes and sending them to publishers, like the band who always recorded vocals in a jail cell for an authentic sound so the lead singer had to keep finding ways to get arrested and then phoned his vocals in, to people like Teddy Baker and Bob, but who did actual weird vigilante shit like beat purse-snatchers to within an inch of their life. He blamed Kick-Ass and the internet. He supported Man U, which was okay I guess, they are the Gooners of the North. His barbecue chicken was to die for. And his wife’s going in for a boob-reduction this weekend.

We sat there chatting for an hour before he finally let me go. We swapped emails. He told me to stay away from Teddy Baker, but didn’t tell me why. I nodded sagely at him and we went our separate ways. I headed out of the police station. I needed to head back to Brooklyn and try and get some of my stuff back. Outside the police station, Teddy Baker was waiting for me.

He smiled at me and shrugged.

‘Every night something new, eh?’ I said.

‘What was all that about?’

‘Cops just being cops.’

‘You’ve been in there for hours.’

‘Yeah, come on, man. I need a beer, my balls are chafing in this Lycra and I wanna get my phone and stuff from Disappearing Bob.’

We started walking to the subway and I asked Teddy Baker what the deal with Bob was. He told me that Bob was a good guy really, just not very good with confrontation or making decisions. He was one of those guys who prided himself on a moral code, but often that moral code didn’t involve anything happening in real life to question it. I said he sounded like a massive dickhead.

‘Man, that wasn’t cool what he did, just leaving us like that.’

‘Teddy Baker,’ I said. ‘I have to ask you. We look alike, right? We both have similar facial features, similar build, similar skin tone – Teddy Baker, why the honky name, brother?’

Teddy Baker thought about it, then shrugged. ‘I’m just racially ambiguous, I guess.’

‘Where your parents from?’