We Are Not in Pakistan (9 page)

To life, to the world.

What if I fail you, baby?

You do not fail me if you try your best.

I will try.

Dr. Chi's smile is above her.

“Oh, your bindi is smudged,” she says kindly. “It was weeping.”

The prescription Dr. Chi writes for Naina is for a broth of chicken, laced with ginger juice and brandy, to be washed down nightly with red date tea.

Naina's baby is born in October on Diwali day, the day Ram came home from exile. Few diyas burn on the windowsills of homes, and there are no sparklers; few celebrate this festival in Toronto. After her second gestation, she comes quietly, from an unwitnessed, private labour. Labour that is joy, joy that is labour. There is no one but Naina to staunch the blood, clean the child, cut the cord and offer the gods her thanks.

All my thanks, heartfelt thanks.

And in the morning, Naina opens her door to Valerie, who cries, “Cherie, I finished it, come and see … oh, la la! What have we here?”

The bay window encircles Naina as she resumes her seat, the baby at her breast.

“Ah, your bébé and mine, they came together! I have work all night as if a beam had opened between myself and le bon dieu.”

“I too worked all night,” says Naina, smiling radiantly. “I'll come up and visit yours soon.”

When Valerie is gone, Naina lifts the cordless phone.

It's time she told the family; she'll call Sunita — really shock her this time. Time to find Stanford and surprise him, tell him what she's done without his help. Time to register the hybrid little being in her arms.

Hel-lo, Jimmy! Jimmy McKuen!

It's me, Enrico. How does this place call itself Greek and let you Irish in? Let you sit at their lunch counter, they'll let anyone in. You sure you're allowed this side of town? Good to see you, amigo — been one helluva long time.

You're looking good, but that corduroy coat of yours looks like it's from the Salvation Army. Feel mine — it's that new microfibre. And where'd you get that shirt, buddy? Looks like the one you had on the last time I saw you. Hey, doesn't cost much to be in style these days, but you gotta be aware. What's in, what's out, you know. Oh, and your hair — how come you still have so much of it? If I had my shears, I'd texturize it a little. Right here, above your ear.

Okay, I'll sit down a minute.

By the way, you'd know something that's been bothering me all day. What was the name of Gene Autry's horse? Trigger? Nah, it's about your memory, Jimmy. It just came to me — Champion, that was his name.

Yeah, coffee. I don't know — my god, do I have to decide this fast? Decaf, I guess. What's your name? Carlos, huh? Man, you are so Mexican.

I ain't his kind of Mexican, Jimmy, I was always kinda laid back. This one's so nervous, he's ambidextrous with that coffee.

Speaking of coffee, you know my son? Met him? In and out of problems — aren't we all! The latest one is coffee. He's buying it from a company called Bad Ass, what a name! They sold him a sixteen thousand dollar roaster, like he's going to roast that much coffee. He says it's the biggest commodity in the world after oil. All those kids lining up to order grandeys and double latteys — you say anything in French it sounds better, know that? You want a little class, just get out your English-French dictionary — it's all there, that's the key to class, my man.

And romance. You know it, Jimmy, even you got your Irish tongue around voolay-voo kooshay ahvec mwa, you know that one, eh? Bet you've used that one a few times — not in court, I'm sure, but extra-curricular. Am I right or wrong?

No, I never was in France, Korea was my war. You too, huh? Still writing wills and filing incorporations? Small claims and traffic stuff? Well, someone's gotta deal with that stuff.

Oh, let me see, I was last in Mexico in … remember my '57 T-bird? Turquoise, with the porthole windows? I used to store the top in the summer. Took me three months to drive down to Acapulco. Saw all the relatives. They thought I walked on water, still had donkeys and sticks in those days. Offered me their daughters. At that time, I liked every girl, let me tell ya. I had Norwegians, Germans, Greeks, even Italians. I never left any out, loved all my honeys, but I never did many Mexicans. I was too scared of the fathers.

Be still my heart, if it isn't the lovely Tula! Where have you been all my life, my darlin'?

No sense of humour, eh?

What're you having, Jimmy? Just coffee and a cruller? Hey, it's almost lunchtime.

Okay, Tula. Spinach omelette. No toast, no hash browns.

I found my own gene therapy, Jimmy: no carbs. Now I'm aware, it's so easy. I want to go out with my boots on, with feet, you see. So half of me is gone. I have a closet full of forty-fours and I'm down to thirty-four.

Women these days, even French doesn't work on them. Wish I knew what does work — when you're aware, everything is so easy.

Let me tell you about romancing women. I'd pull up outside Mercy High School in my '36 Ford with that rumble seat, you seen it? I glued the leopard skin to the dashboard myself. Skirts way down in those days, Jimmy. Way down, I swear, nearly to the ankle, and if I saw a kneecap I was so excited. They kept them pretty well covered in the forties, you know, Jimmy. Ah, you're too young, you only remember the fifties. Remember when the microminis came in in the sixties? Oh my god, I nearly died. And Elvis, how they wouldn't show him from the waist down? Those Evangelicals were saying that was terrible, but they can't put the genie back in the bottle now. I was ahead of the curve in the forties — now my kids call
me
old-fashioned. Now their friends look at me and say, I think my grandma went to your hair salon. And if you give them any advice about love — no one makes love like they do today, you know. No one can make love like these kids today. Oh my god, I'm old-fashioned now, but you know the kind of hairpin I am.

Thank you, my love. This omelette looks divine.

Grab me a napkin, there, would you, Jimmy? That woman is half in love with me, I swear.

Yeah, sure I was married. Twice. Once in Anchorage in '54 — the ratio there was five hundred to one, so marriage was the only way to find some warm loving. Second time — maybe you met Nance? You should have. What a woman.

Ah, it's a long story I should only tell to someone with an Emilio Zapata statue on the dashboard. Or Pancho Villa. They
got along, you know, they had their own special interests like everyone else, but they got along.

All my friends were getting married, Jimmy — even you. Admit it. What year was it you got married to Arlene? I must have done it the year after, so 1965. I had to. Nance said marriage or the highway, and there comes a time when it's hard to resist a good housekeeper, you know? I said to her, You white women are all alike, but really, the ones coming out of college these days, hell, they're getting so many opinions a man doesn't know what's coming next. So I went and did it. Yes, I did.

I'm not going to say another word about my marriage, Jimmy. Just this. Nance was a fine wife, no doubt about that. I had so many honeys while she raised four kids. If I came home drunk, that woman would just let me sleep in the car, no matter what the weather. One night I was going home and I pulled over to take a nap. A flashlight shone through the window, I explained to the cop that I hadn't wanted to get sleepy driving. Ten feet from the curb? said the cop. He took me down to the station and called Nance. Nance said, Keep him — what'm I going to do with him? I'll pick him up in the morning. That's the way she was, see, a practical woman. So the cop came back and I'd been sitting there talking for an hour — to a fireman's coat and hat hanging on the wall. When I got home I told her, “Ay, you white women are all alike,” and I tried to give her a kiss. She said, Keep your hands off the merchandise.

But I did that too many times, wore her out, you know. Now I'm on Nance's Ten Most Not-Wanted list, but she's got good reason. Takes years to wear out some women, and that Nance of mine stuck it out longer than most. You want to know why? Take one guess — don't bother, I'll tell you anyways. It's cause I'm more interesting than any of the young guys you see around these days. Oh, they'll be faithful and they'll be good providers to dull-witted women like Tula, but I ask you, do they have charm? Are they
interesting? Can they make conversation with anything but their computers? Nah, Jimmy, you and I got it made in the conversation department. That's what I used to tell Nance, any time we fought. And she'd tell me I was way too good with words.

Conversation. For years I made my living by conversation. Like you, but not as serious — you were always so serious I used to say your middle name was Silence.

The Shampoo Shrink, that's what they called me. And they'd come saying, Oh, my wife just left me, or, I lost my job. And I'd sit 'em in my barber chair, and I'd pump the thing up till they were way off the ground, and then I'd tell 'em what I thought they should do and bring 'em back to earth again, cause that's really what they needed more than my haircuts. Oh, Jimmy, I got so many friends that way — guys and all my honeys too.

And do you know, that was the problem, I couldn't charge them! Over the years I collected so many friends I wasn't charging nearly anyone. Then Nance started checking the books to see if my honeys paid, and she said, Hey, stop with the talking and the flirty thing, just do their shampoos and styles. She was right, I couldn't pay the rent anymore with the number of paying customers I had left, so the salon went to pay its debts and I went personal.

Personal was good. I made house calls to rich guys, so they wouldn't be seen in public with curlers and bibs on, you know. CEOs, them guys who get golden parachutes and retirement plans even when their companies lose billions of dollars. Senators, doctors. Gave them some of my advice and got some. Rich men love telling how they got rich and how they go about keeping it, which is much harder, you know, Jimmy, a lot harder. Nance said I should have listened more and talked less, but you only go around once, and she was just mad because after thirty years of her work and some of mine, we didn't have nothing to show.

Yeah, sometimes I'd get loaded and say mean things. A silver
tongue like mine usually comes with a black lining. Got so loaded one night, I fell asleep before I remembered to say the I-love-you's. Next morning there was a note on the door from a lawyer and I had all the space in the world for my clothes in our closet.

No, no more coffee. Slow down, boy, slow down. Got your Nikes moving like you're going to run in the Olympics. Don't crash the dishes, dammit, you're giving every Mexican a bad name. No one's going to call Homeland Security to catch you here.

Well, Jimmy these days I hang around, talk to young white guys like you. Black guys, gals — I'm not particular. Yesterday they said on the TV that if you're going to stand at a bus stop, stand with your back to the wall. Now, do I look like a pantywaist who'd stand like that? I said, I'm from Mexico, I don't need to be worried about my black brothers, the ones who gotta be afraid are people like you Jimmy, look at you, white as white gets, even your eyebrows.

Course, my eyebrows are white too now.

Speaking of TV, am I tired of car chases and shoot-em-ups. Oh, listen to their great dialogue, A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. What do you think they mean by that? I mean, I'd like to ask Arnold that, say Hey, Schwarzi-negger, what did you
mean?
He doesn't know — I swear he paid for acting school just to get himself a wooden face. Forget TV, we gotta get out like this more, talk to people. And women.

I tried some bars, but romance is pretty confusing these days, Jimmy. Remember when gay meant happy? How 'bout Gaelic? That must be rough on you, Jimmy, you can't even say Gaelic any more, not that you might, seeing as you don't speak it, but I mean you should be able to say gay-lick, you know? Last month I went to some bar where they had all tall girls, and I tried to make out all night, and when I was leaving this one with big eyelashes says to her girlfriend, Forget him, the bitch is straight. Turns out her name was Rodney.

Now I'm at this restaurant that wants to be fine dining. New York style in the Midwest, and at New York prices — it's a lotta hooey! I wear a boutonniere and usher ladies to their tables while the young men tip the valet parkers. If you ever see my Nance, tell her I wear white gloves and pour the best champagne. Tell her I still have a few clients, but there's no one I call honey.

Oh yeah, you've never met her. But if you do, you can't miss her, she's still a looker.

Anyways, since Nance left me I've got time. A lot of time. So I've been writing — started about a year ago, going down to the lakeshore with my spiral notebook and dictionary. You know you just take a word, add it to another, and you never know where you end up.

Here's my new card. See the cupid? I make some bucks from young guys. They're like you always were, Jimmy — got no vo-cab-yoo-lary of romance. Here's a for instance: Last week, I was down at the beach and I finished a poem for next Valentine's Day — sure it's half a year away, but I keep in practice. I called it “Rendezvous,” that's French for meeting someone you love again. I must've been missing Nance that day — my eyes were smarting. I get that way sometimes, whenever I get wondering if she ever thinks of me.

There was a young lifeguard sitting up on his high chair in his county uniform. Red shorts and all the sunscreen we never knew to wear at his age. I said, Here, give this to your honey. You got a honey? He said yes. I told him, Remember this: she's gotta believe in romance, she's gotta believe romance is everything, because the first minute your honey stops believing that, you've lost her.

Don't you wish someone had given us that kind of advice? You know, when we were his age? Maybe someone told you a secret no one told me — that's how come you've still got Arlene.