by Michael Earp
The shadow is wet against my forehead. The voice is a whisper. At first I think the spirit belongs here. Then I realise it has come to visit me; I have brought it here. It is from home. A woman. My great-grandmother. My heart is flooded with warmth, and my arms prickle with fear. I hold these juxtaposing feelings in one body.
I open my eyes. Groups of people have started to come in, and the lights are higher. If I wanted to talk more with my ancestor, the time has passed. I rub my nose slowly, and pinch my thigh awake.
“You are being called home,” J says.
“You saw her too?”
J does not speak further to me. She has cultural business with a woman of a similar age, R, who has entered, and walks over to her.
My name is called and I step on stage and pick up the mike from its stand. Words start to flow from my mouth and I am instantly brought back home.
When we were twelve I only listened to rap. T though had an obsession with Kate Bush that lasted long enough for me to have a peripheral appreciation. I remember us singing “This Woman’s Work” until our voices were hoarse. We liked Bush until we discovered her album called The Dreaming. It was the first full example of cultural appropriation I understood as I received detailed explanations from my grandparents in the weeks afterwards as to why the title song had left me feeling funny. T and I fell in love in our early twenties, years after my grandparents passed away. (We finally figured our feelings out when, for the first time ever, we spent time apart, as we went to different unis – yes, I still haven’t graduated and she got a fast-tracked degree and a job straight out of uni.) I am grateful that they got to know her (our houses were neighbouring), and that my Aunty created a ceremony where I could come out to them. I feel them with me even more as I get older. Twelve is not an age where you can comprehend death. I threw myself into music then, and it led me on this path.
The crowd feels me. Applause soothes my nerves. I can see my friends in the crowd. When I play the next track it is my family that I’m flowing for.
***
While I’m sipping a beer after my set, my phone vibrates and an unknown number starts a new dialogue.
hey, they say.
hello? I reply.
I suddenly start shaking. And type another line.
What’s yr dream?
The reply is immediate, a sheep emoji. It’s been so long. I ask her questions, not willing at first to believe it’s really her. Before I can get my head straight, she tells me she’s coming to see me.
Omg what?
just booked a flight to for tomorrow morn. I’ll let you know when I land.
Whoa. How did you know where I was?
Someone posted a video of you playing!
Shit.
It’s okay.
No this is not good.
I’ll be there soon. Your mum, Aunty, everyone’s okay. We all send our love. I’ll be there
T you don’t know what you’re doing. You’ll be like me. Not able to get back home. I need to get back home.
I’ll get you there hun.
T’s “typing” suddenly stops. I stash my phone in my pocket. Now my legs are shaking so much I need to sit down.
I look around frantically at the faces and bodies in front of me for the person who could have been filming my performance without my knowledge. I try to spot an outstretched phone. I get up and walk among the crowd, bumping into the owner.
“What’s wrong?” she says immediately. “Can I get you another beer?”
“This is not safe. You must stop the night right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“This place is going to get raided.”
I hear a loud sound outside and I immediately duck, dropping my bottle to the ground, where it spins for a moment and then lies on its side.
The car has passed. No one enters.
J comes to see what’s happening. I let her and the owner lead me to a booth where nobody is sitting. They make me sit and hold my shoulders so I can’t keep pacing anxiously.
“It’s okay,” they say.
“Someone filmed me and uploaded the video.”
“The police will not come for that. Why do you think this?”
“They are coming.”
“We are safe here.”
I check my phone and see that all of the messages T sent have disappeared. And I don’t know if she wiped them or if they were never sent.
The lights become even brighter. I can’t make out a shadow or a song. I try to tell them that they are wrong. That bad things will happen here tonight. But my voice begins to falter, and to my embarrassment, I start crying. Hot tears that mix with my sweat.
J holds my arm like my grandmother, an arm of strength and brittle bone.
It is a long time before I stop shaking and the room stops spinning. The owner brings me a hot, calming drink, which tastes of fennel and honey, and then another. J stays with me the whole time. I soon realise that almost everyone has left and the music is low. Nothing has happened tonight.
“Am I really safe?” I mumble to myself. “Am I safer here?”
“Your ancestors are with you to protect you,” J says.
“Yeah,” I put my hands over my chest. “Always.”
“How are you getting home?”
The dead dog was gummy with blood. Wafat knew the name of it – it was Andy’s terrier from down the way – but dead things didn’t need names. It was just “dog” now. He moved its head with the tip of his blue-black Nike TNs, its torn neck a gaping, chewed mess. His shoes weren’t in a much better state, really. Ramadan was coming up though, which meant going hungry, but also meant Eid, which meant money and the new pair of sneakers Wafat wanted.
He looked up at the dimming sky to see if the first faint scratch of moon had appeared yet. Salim would have laughed at him for looking, “Like you’re going to be the one who says all right ya klaab, fasting starts tomorrow!” It was the same every year. Salim with his chunky nose and twinkling brown eyes thought Wafat was too serious. “It’s because your parents gave you a girl’s name,” he’d say. “You’re not normal.” He and the other boys were long gone. They’d only stopped in the alley for a minute to exclaim over the animal carcass and poke at its open guts before the stink sent them staggering off, laughing at the ripeness of it. Wafat stayed behind. He couldn’t explain why beyond a vague unease, a lining of lead in his gut. What could do this to a dog? It looked half-eaten.
He left after another minute, carrying on down through the mouth of the alley. His street looked like most other streets in the area: rows of squat houses rippled along it. The earth rose in gentle waves, tipping neighbouring buildings up and back unevenly. Sometimes Wafat liked to think of the homes as dancers that moved so slowly he couldn’t see the motion. On nights like these, he thought they were more like rotting teeth poking out a giant jawline. Streetlights loomed over him, casting orange dresses on the road. He avoided them and the fake gold they made of the few short trees on the sidewalk. His aunty’s house was midway down, Number 32, a line of hedge bushes guarding the front like fat green soldiers. It sat deeper in the ground than all the others, a slippage that seemed to suggest that at any moment it could be swallowed up and vanish. It was housing commission like most other places in the area, a three-bed brick bunker that couldn’t protect them from anything. It wasn’t theirs, it could be taken away. Wafat kicked his shoes off at the door and peeked through the window, relief washing over him at the familiar blast of whiteness: the tiles shone with zeal, the walls were freshly painted (his arms twinged with a remembered ache) and the lounge room lights were surgical in their illumination as if even a shadow would be a stain.
The azan wavered through the cupped hands of the house, and though God’s call was shrouded in radio static, Wafat could see his aunty already answering, her body folding over the prayer mat like perfect laundry. She was dressed in her loose, white prayer clothes, a ghost dedicated to faith, and as Wafat stood there blinking, adjusting
to the glare of it all, she flickered and reappeared several times. “A salaam wu-alaikum,” he said to whoever was listening as he opened the door and stepped inside.
Two fluffy brown couches frowned at him as he walked past the large box TV set up against the window, and the coffee table in the middle of the room. Towards the back there was a larger dining table covered in a thick plastic sheet, next to an enormous cabinet with a hundred different compartments, none of which Wafat was allowed to touch. In a nook between the two adjoining areas a rickety grandfather clock leaned, peeling and ancient, the hatch beneath the top permanently open, a dull plastic canary stuck mid-motion. The clock still told the time, and it was here his aunty Jamileh prayed to God the Most Merciful, Most Compassionate. Wafat breezed past, into the cramped kitchen where he was glad to see a tundjra on the stovetop, the big, red pot open and full. Right then, he would have sworn on the Quran that he had never been hungrier in his life and that it had arrived all at once in that moment, a lightning need.
It was patota al-baad, potato and eggs, the former diced and the latter scrambled, all of it speckled with salt and pepper. Wafat scooped some into a plate, grabbing a tub of labneh and a bottle of ketchup out of the fridge to go with it. It wasn’t his favourite dish, but his aunty liked making it because it was quick and easy to prepare after her shift at the local chicken and chip shop. The radio on the kitchen bench was spitting out garbled nonsense now, so he flicked it off at the switch. In the quiet that followed, his aunty finished her prayer and said, “Wa-alaikum wu salaam, son. Do you want me to heat it up?”
“No thanks,” he said. She called him son because she had raised him, and he’d liked it well enough when he was younger. Now it felt more like a yoke, one she was winding tighter each day, especially as her own kids grew older and more distant. He took his plate to the table with a packet of Leb bread and got stuck in, his hunger a burning hole. He was done in what felt like a second, the eager demon in his stomach unsatisfied. He sat there, lips tingling with salt and oil, confused. The dog floated through his mind, fur clotted and stiff, and his body rumbled.
“Ma’shallah,” his aunty said, her round face splitting open with a beaming smile. “You inhaled it. Do you want more?”
Wafat shook his head. “I’m full,” he lied, so she took his plate away and began cleaning after him. He was heading to his room when she yelled out from the kitchen, “Kholto Nazeero called me today.” Nazeero wasn’t really his kholto, not by blood anyway. All the adults he came into contact with at home were aunties and uncles by default. He wasn’t sure how his cousins felt about that, given their unquestioned place in this house and clear understanding of where they fit in, but to Wafat there was something both pleasing and uncomfortable in how easy it was to make family out of strangers.
“Oh?” he said, trying his best to sound casual though his heart had just doubled in size, and his pulse was punching his throat with a studded glove. Last weekend Nazeero had held her second wedding, this one to an import from Lebanon, and her reception at the function centre in Liverpool had been the most glamorous event of his life. He wasn’t thinking about the long, flowing dresses topped with elegant hijabs, the parade-ground suits bold as a flock of birds, or even the endless sea of diamantes clinging to every woman’s skin and nails, making their bodies a field of stars he wished he could become in turn, no, he was thinking of Nazeero’s son Noah and his lovely brown eyes. It was the first time they’d seen each other since they were kids, and both had grown – Wafat into a hairy, lanky mess and Noah into a slim prince.
Wafat spotted him from across the ballroom of heaving, sweaty heavens and the sight of the tall curly-haired boy in his baby-blue suit almost sent him sprawling. He twisted his trip into an awkward spin, whirling on the dance floor. He didn’t have a suit of his own, he was in jeans and a white dress shirt, but for once he didn’t feel shabby. He even managed to forget Noah’s gleaming curls and delicate chin, focusing on the joy thrumming through his calves and into his hips. Wafat loved weddings, loved to dance; here he wasn’t just a monobrow, wasn’t just elbows and knees, here he could be as effeminate as he pleased. All the men danced and swung their hips as much as, if not more than, the women, arms out like wings. Here he was beautiful. When “Let’s Get Married” by Jagged Edge finally stopped, Wafat paused for a breath, then saw Noah beckoning him to the side with a nod and smile.
“Yes, she’s going to come over tomorrow inshallah,” Aunty Jamileh said, watching him from the kitchen doorway now, her hands still puffy with soap. “Oh, and Noah will come too.” Her voice was as casual as his had been, but her eyes were sharp enough to cut his skin. He didn’t know whether he was imagining a dangerous undercurrent to her words or if it was real – an awareness he wasn’t ready for – and it almost didn’t matter, as a prickle of fear still went shuddering through him. What would they do when they knew?
“Yeah, cool,” he said, looking away. “I’ve got homework to do.” That was his exit line, the fastest way to get out of anything his aunty wanted from him. He’d used it so often by now she thought he was some kind of budding genius. He headed to his bedroom and also back to the wedding dance floor he’d felt so alive on. Noah had shaken his hand with surprising strength and brought him in for a one-armed hug, saying how good it was to see him again. Up close he had a strange gleam in his eye and a reckless way of speaking that almost made Wafat think he’d been drinking, but that wasn’t possible, not at a Muslim wedding. When Noah cracked up, Wafat realised he’d said it aloud. Noah brought him in closer, his muscles bunching up around Wafat’s neck like a braided snake until he could see the sweat dripping down Noah’s smooth, tan cheek.
“Cuz, there’s always one table in the back with booze under it,” he said into Wafat’s ear and laughed. He pointed at the table in question and sure enough, an odd collection of younger men and old men were gathered around it, plastic cups of cola in hand. “Come on, let’s get out of here, it’s too hot.” Without waiting for an answer, he dragged on Wafat’s neck and it was just like their younger days, Noah leading and Wafat stumbling after, trying to keep up and feeling again a pure joy he had forgotten. Behind the DJ booth they came out into a concrete hallway that was a far cry from the panelled wood and fine dining of the reception room. A sign pointed the way to the toilets, and stairs led up to the roof. With bass pulsing at his back in relentless waves, Wafat followed Noah upwards, his eyes glued to the tight blue curves flexing in front of him.
A blast of cold air signalled the door opening, and then they were on the flat top of the function centre. Noah kicked a broken brick behind them to stop the door from shutting completely and locking them out. As they looked over the low buildings of Liverpool to where the Westfield shopping centre hulked on the horizon, its red sign a slick blaze in the night, Wafat realised Noah was still holding his hand. And he liked it, the simple warmth, the way their fingers intertwined casually, as if they had always been this way. He didn’t want to let go. From below, the sound of Cher’s “Believe” drifted up and Noah sprang away from him to face the street, dancing and singing at the top of his voice.
“Dah da daa!” he shouted. His curls bounced as he danced, his shiny black shoes tapping on the cement, backlit against the sky. Someone on the street yelled out “Faggot!” and Noah whirled around, his face stricken wild, eyes locking onto Wafat’s, who felt the anonymous lance of shame pinning him to the wall. Then Noah grinned that foolish drunken grin and bent over, pulling his pants down to moon the arsehole, slapping his butt and hollering.
Just watching him coated Wafat in anxious sweat. Part of him wanted to join Noah, who like all the boys their age seemed to be driven by a fearlessness, and part of him didn’t want to be seen by whoever was down there looking up in judgement. Salim was right – he was too serious. He could never be this loose, this defiant. Even on the dance floor he was conforming, hiding among all the other bodies. Any kind of attention was dangerous – why wasn’t that obvious to everyone? Wafat pu
shed himself away from the wall, running forwards to grab Noah’s hand and pull him away from the edge. Any of the uncles and random rellos having a smoke on the street outside might see them. Hell, one of them might have been the man who called out. With luck, they could put this down to the silly antics of boys, young men having their first taste of rum.
Noah giggled breathlessly, his belt jangling as he pulled his pants up again, half-falling into Wafat as he did so.
“What’s wrong with you, Nouh?” Wafat hissed, furious with alarm.
“Aw, come on, cuz,” Noah said, his arms looped carelessly around Wafat’s neck. “It’s just a joke.” His breath smelled spicy.
“It’s your mum’s wedding, bro.”
Noah rolled his eyes, but when he spoke his voice was thick with bitterness. “She got an old beard from Lebanon, so what, no one cares.” He gave up on his belt and hung off Wafat, huffing for a second, his suit pants half-off. He had black briefs with a dark blue band on the top that read “ALPHA”. His mum clearly shopped at Kmart too, because Wafat had a similar set. Maybe she and Aunty Jamileh did their shopping together. Noah wiggled his cute butt saying, “Hey, I’m up here,” and Wafat looked back up into his friend’s warm eyes. There was no shock and no anger. Noah’s smile was coy, a slight lifting of lips that invited more, that set Wafat’s blood to humming.
“Can you help me?” he said. Wafat had to strain to hear the whisper and now they were all the way in each other’s arms. He shot a look at the door to the stairs, his chest tight and hard as any of the durbakkes pounded below. What if they were seen? He didn’t say anything, yet his hands were drifting downwards anyway, and latching onto Noah’s pants. He lifted them slowly, so slowly, as Noah cradled his head on Wafat’s shoulder, pulling the fabric up over his firm, fuzzy legs. His pants were tight, and caught for a moment first at the front and then the back. Wafat sizzled when Noah’s lips hit his skin, a warm wetness that sucked gently at his neck, the hairs on his arms rising up. Surely this was it, an immediate death striking down from God above, what else could be so intense? Then he moaned, and melted into Noah’s arms. They were alive and hard and it was fantastic.