They Is Us

by Tama Janowitz

  Anyway, here is Mrs Patel, squinting in the bright white stream, up to the window. “Have you heard from Tahnee? I call and call, they say Locu was with her! Where can he be?”

  Murielle shakes her head. She knows with certainty something is about to go wrong or at least something is about to happen that is not going to be good. Luckily Breakfast is back, slurping from his water dish. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she tells him.

  “Les’ go,” the dog says. His words are slurred, she hopes he hasn’t been lapping up that antifreeze again.

  “I wish you’d try to enunciate more clearly! Oh, what am I saying? Julie! Julie! Dad! Grab your stuff, we’re getting out of here.” A sense of something like deja vu comes over her, or maybe this really has already happened?

  “Ma? What’s going on?”

  “They’re coming in tonight.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly, but what I do know is that they plan to wait until we’re asleep and bulldoze the whole place down, and they’re going to say later that they told us we had to be out, but we refused to leave – something like that. We’ve got to go – now. Where’s Grandpa?”

  “He said he was going to Amsterdam, something about rescuing Dutch children. A taxi picked him up a while ago.”

  “What? We’ll have to go without him. And Cliffort?”

  “Oh, Mom – we had a little fight and he’s really not around most of the time any more, he just stops by once in a while but I think he must be living with someone else. He hates me!” There is a banging at the front door. Julie staggers to answer it and comes back shouting, “Mom, Mom, they’ve cordoned off the roads, I think we better get out of here, at least for the night, they are saying they’re going to fumigate or something.”

  “How can we go, are they letting people out?”

  “No, it’s a road block, but we can go through the swamp.”

  “Take what you need in a knapsack!” At random she throws things into her canvas shopping bag, which reads on the side Old Farm Security Homestead Organic Non-Engineered Heritage Food Produce. A bottle of water? Some diet pop? A can of dog food? Mosquito repellant?

  She doesn’t know where they are going, nor for how long. Or even why, except that it’s the sort of thing the sensible people do in the movies, escaping just as the rest of the village, town, city, culture, is getting wiped out, exterminated, sent to the camps, put on the long march, quarantined and left to die, decimated by fire, flood, famine, you hadda get out or perish! Let’s go go go!

  “Breakfast! Breakfast! Here, get in,” Julie whispers to the dog and stuffs him in her bag, which barely has enough room, stuffed full as it is with HoneyBumble’s Pure Lip Balm; Maude Lauder #12 Extra Volume Taupe Mascara; Maybelline Daisy Fresh Centomax Face Wash and a plethora of other items without which no thirteen-year-old can live without. “Come on, let’s go,” yells Murielle.

  “Wait, wait!” Julie quickly runs to the basement to release the various fluffy, clawed pets, shoos them up the basement steps into the yard in the hopes that somehow they will survive. As they head out into the swamp Julie can’t really believe that anything much is going to happen to them. They hear the explosion. The blast is so loud and bright the sky behind them is white.

  For a moment they stop and turn to watch. It appears to have occurred right where their house was. And then Julie, followed by Murielle and Breakfast, continue out into deeper water.

  20

  Slawa is livid, he is so livid he can only hope Julie didn’t see how upset he was; there is no use in getting her upset too. Cliffort. That damp-skinned… thing that came out from behind a toilet, who obviously had something to do with the plane crash and now may have very well impregnated his thirteen-year-old daughter. It is another barbed bandarilla from the mocking picador stinging his hide. He is more than enraged; he can’t sleep, he spends the night in the cool darkness of his own private nightclub-lounge, listening as the subway cars pass by, first fairly often, then with greater lapses of time between trains as the night wears on.

  It occurs to him Bocar has not uttered a word, and is clutching a box to his chest. “Are you all right?”

  “I am not all right,” Bocar says. “My box is empty.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I say, my box is emp-ty. In it CON-tained the fingernail clippings of my parents. It was be-ING all I had of them. All my life I have kept this. And al-WAYS I have sav-Ed to some day have my parents cloned. Yes, this can be done. It is fea-SIB-le. Never, I am thinking, will I have enough money; yet still it gives me hope and at night, I sleep beside my Mum and Father.”

  “I will help you save,” says Slawa. “We can do it together.”

  “Now, it is too late. My uncle has found me with the box and thrown the con-TENTS away. Instead, he has put used clippings of himself and my aunt. All this time I have thought it was my parents, carried with me for so long. My uncle laughs, he had not planned to tell me. Only to see the event if I ever did win the lottery and get enough money, how surprised I would be to be given clones of my aunt and uncle, and not parents!”

  Slawa doesn’t want to ask, if this were to occur, how Bocar would be able to recognize two babies as not being his parents, how anyone could identify an infant as his uncle or aunt – but he doesn’t say anything. He knows these clippings were the only things Bocar had on the planet. “I am going to leave the box here. If someday I do not return, in the box is something for you. Please remember! You know when I go home they will beat me, perhaps this time even kill me,” Bocar says.

  “I tell you what,” Slawa says as they head out. “Let’s get married, that way they can’t touch you.” The boy stares at his hand with amazement.

  “You are doing this for me? But why? What do you wish in return?”

  “No, I do not want nothing in return, you are my friend, this is friendship that is all, so now you will not need to return to your uncle. When later you are having green card, we can divorce. Meanwhile, two is stronger than one, you can help me in shop and with kitties.”

  They take the blood tests and apply for the license. Until the marriage takes place Bocar will hide out in the basement of the shoe repair store.

  A couple of days later they go to City Hall. Slawa would give Bocar a ring but the only ring he had he gave, years ago, to Julie. Bocar is very nervous. His hands are ice cold, he will never be warm again in this country where it can snow in July. On the fifth floor he asks Slawa to find out where the men’s room is – he is embarrassed: nobody except Slawa can understand him. Slawa approaches a young man. “He wants to know where the toilets is.”

  “He’s the bride? Or groom.”

  Slawa shrugs. He hasn’t thought things through that far. But then he remembers the expression, once a groom, never a bride and, after all, he has been a groom twice before. “He is bride, I guess.”

  “Two floors down,” says the man – he seems to work in the building. “It’s for him? Gosh, he’s pretty. Tell him to be careful – a guy got raped in there last week.”

  Slawa can’t help but wonder whether the rape victim was about to be married… Some poor virginal kid?

  The Justice of the Peace – or whatever he is – a tubby mustached fellow, makes a complete mess of the whole speech. “Do youse, Slawa… Slawa Al-yo-ishus – Fockinoff… Wow, that’s some name, huh? Take youse, Bocar Abdul bin Benin, to be your lawful wedded spouse…”

  The whole time the J.P. stares out the window. Waiting behind them are couples, men and women, couples with four, five kids, people seem to be crowded into the waiting room as if today was the last day on the planet anyone might get married, in wedding gowns and tuxedos, Halloween costumes of vampires and warlocks.

  After, they go for lunch nearby; they each have a glass of champagne. As a devout Muslim Bocar normally doesn’t drink. He sips his shyly. Thank God it seems nothing has changed between the two of them, Slawa had no intention of consummating the relationship; he isn’t gay, after all.
But that evening when they are about to go to bed, before he has reached up to turn off the light he is doubled over in pain. His head, the wound, what can be the matter with him and he has no money to pay for some brain-scan let alone an operation…

  “Here, I am mass-aging you,” says Bocar, and while he is lying on his stomach he doesn’t see that Bocar has removed his own clothing and… somehow it does not seem to matter when the massage continues into… something more…

  Naked… shyly.

  The kid is really magnificent, with his long hair, his nubile body, like a prepubescent girl, though narrow-hipped, long in the waists, totally flat-chested.

  “My friend,” says Slawa, who finds himself aroused, perhaps with nervousness and embarrassment as much as anything else. “You are very sweet, but there is no need to do that. As you know we are married only for the purpose of trying to rescue you from your aunt and uncle and get you out of military duty.”

  “But I want to,” says Bocar simply, and pulling the blankets aside, he crawls beneath…

  When Slawa can’t see the body it hardly matters what sex it is. The experience is, for Slawa at least, of great beauty. Afterward when they lie together he asks Bocar if he has ever done that before. Bocar hesitates. “No, you can tell me. I want to know…”

  It turns out the boy has been taken advantage of by various men since he was ten years old: there have been soldiers and others, on and on for years, most recently his uncle. “But you must understand, with you, this was the first time I wanted someone. You did not take advantage of me.”

  If that is true, Slawa thinks, it is pathetic. There he is with his big gut, his balding head. He resolves to get into shape. He feels such tenderness for the boy and at the same time something queasy, is it love? But of what sort? He still can’t think of himself as gay; Bocar seems so much like a girl, or perhaps his son. He has never expected to have feelings of this sort and they are disturbing in every way. “My little friend,” says Slawa, “I would like to do something for you, is there something I could do that would make you happy?”

  Bocar says nothing but Slawa feels… There is something, unstated, though it is not until he grabs Bocar and begins to wrestle him that finally the boy blurts, “It will make me happy if you would convert to Islam.”

  It is damp. And then the rains come, day after day, everything is soaked, flooded, mildew sprouts on every surface, more chunks of the ice caps have melted and now the city streets are many feet deep in water. It is possible to get schistosomiasis, bilharzia, other invasive, non-indigenous vector-carried diseases. You need hip waders to get anywhere, even then one sudden slop, a sanitation truck churning up the muck as it passes by, stuff comes in over the tops; for a time there are fish that can bite, that seem to be some combination of piranha and Chinese something-or-other – anyway, they occasionally – okay, rarely, it is true – join up in a school and can go through the rubberized boots in a matter of minutes… All that time they rarely go out, it is cozy in the old Smoke-Easy; Bocar has made a little hole no one can see, to get onto the subway platform and he comes back with food and things for Slawa to study.

  The process of converting is simple. Schedule an appointment with the Imam of a mosque. You will need a couple passport-size photos of yourself as well as two tax stamps (material), and some other documents. They’ll give you a list. Go there, preferably dressed in Muslim garb, with a Koran if you have one. You will need to recite two things, which the Imam can help you with. One is “Bismillahi ar-Rahmani ar-Rahim’. Then there is a statement that says Allah is the only god and Mohammed is his prophet, ‘Asyhadu anla ilaha illa Allah, wa asyhadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullah’. –website for men converting in order to marry Indonesian women

  The mosque is far uptown. On the day of his conversion he and Bocar cross the streets of skyscrapers – once this area was Central Park, now only a tiny dark patch is left, so dark real grass can’t grow and it has long ago been replaced by artificial turf – in silence.

  Before the ceremony they go shopping. Sheepishly Slawa tries on different types of Muslim wear. He is convinced he looks like an imposter, but to wear on this day at least he finds a decent enough bisht, and an Islamic cap, and for other days, perhaps he might wear a salwar kameez, or dishdash. He already has his Koran and a nice little prayer rug that Bocar found for him in the fabric district, quite by chance. Still, he is nervous at meeting the Imam, he is afraid he will make a mistake, even though Bocar has told him not to worry and he has practised what he is to say over and over again. He is having a bad day, his head hurts. Bocar now knows when Slawa is about to have one of his ‘spells’; no amount of aspirin can help any longer, and only very occasionally the touch of Bocar’s hand, on his temples, or the back of his neck, can somewhat diminish the agony.

  He would have liked Julie to be his witness but she is too ill, though no one is quite certain what is wrong with her. As for Bocar’s aunt and uncle, his cousins, he has not told any of them where he is, if they found out they would kidnap him and who knows what. Who will be witness to Slawa’s conversion? The Imam finds another cleric – he can’t seem to believe that neither of the men have friends, or family who will be there on this important occasion.

  But the Imam has a huge following and finally some others are rounded up. The sacristan – if this is the man’s title – is astonished at the number of flies that have suddenly entered the mosque. Bocar and Slawa are both nervous – they both want to laugh, it is hard for them to keep a straight face. They remove their pumps, which are placed on long shelves with a few others, for it is midday during the week, there are not many worshippers.

  Slawa’s so anxious, he’s got the skeeves. “Do you know the five pillars of Islam?” asks the Imam, who exhorts him to follow the faith, to read the Koran and to do the things required as a Muslim. At the end of it they sign the two certificates, one for the Imam, one to keep, in the presence of crying witnesses; one fellow, Ali, gives Slawa prayer beads, a string of ninety-nine pink plastic beads. Now, through prayer, he will be able to determine what Mohammed would wish him to do. Anyway, it is very touching. They congratulate Slawa, reminding him to pray five times a day. “And now we must look for a nice Muslim girl for you to marry,” he is told. He glances shyly at Bocar, the men laugh. Hassan gives Slawa a little box; inside is a plastic key chain with a picture of Al Kaaba Asaulash Anfa, and on the other side is aya 3 of Surat Attalq.

  The Imam takes Bocar and Slawa to one side and talks about that trip to Mecca to make hajj at least once before they die. “That’s it in a nut-shell,” says Bocar, too loudly when they get outside.

  And though he has never touched the boy in public, never embraced him, it is not his style – not even after the wedding – he now takes the boy Bocar’s hand in his own; it is dry and rough with such long sensitive spatulate fingers, the skin on the palm pink and on the back a color of milky espresso – I really must get some crème for his hands, he thinks, poor little chap, poor chapped dry hands – and hand in hand, they begin to walk north, slowly, both gasping for oxygen in air that seems to have been stripped of oxygen. The subways have broken or there is no power supply, at least today; a public bus costs hundreds of dollars, due to the price of gasoline, besides, they can walk faster than a bus moves in traffic.

  The sour asphalt beneath their feet steams and heaves in the heat. “Take it easy,” he says to the kid, “We don’t have to be in a rush, the air is bad, and too hot; we just walk slowly, we get there some time.”

  There is a shop a few blocks away where Bocar buys Slawa some men’s cologne, sandalwood, made without alcohol. Slawa hopes that this is just a present, not something given because he smells. At least, though, the scent seems to drive away the flies, which Bocar is always trying to swat. They still follow Slawa, but at a respectful distance. “Slawa,” Bocar says, “If some day you do not find me, it is not I who left. They may take me. On-LY then, look in my box.”

  “Nonsense, they can’t take you now, we a
re married, I will protect you, soon you will have Green Card, Resident Alien Card, Social Security Card, Driver’s License, maybe we enroll you in school, obtain Work Visa, Student Visa –”

  Slawa hopes the boy is reassured. Bocar smiles sadly but says nothing more.

  It transpires that though they are married (not a Muslim marriage, of course, but civil!) Bocar still can’t be saved from military duty unless the government is reimbursed… and the money – but who had gotten it, where has it all gone, nothing has been put aside for the kid – easily amounting to four hundred thousand, and interest is added to this amount each day.

  Slawa had thought for a time that with his conversion, with prayers facing east five times a day, either in a mosque or simply in his shop, his endless counting of the prayer beads, he would be calm. He had thought with Bocar living there in the basement of the shoe repair shop, on his own mattress nearby, he would not be alone, there would be no time to sit and seethe, fluids building behind his eyes. But quite the opposite occurs. His rage builds and builds and finally he decides that it is up to him to show the world what has been done. And the boy will be the one to help. The boy will be the new Savior. Yet how or what he – they – are meant to do is not yet known to him.

  Now he does not want to leave the planet, he loves the boy so much. During the day he rarely speaks to him, what is there, after all to say? But simply to be around him is enough. It is at night, beneath the cat-scented blankets, when they lie together that he is able to travel to this other place, where… things, like floating balls, bubbles on a sea… without knowing why, this sense of pleasure, and he is back as a boy.