by Pasha Malla
‘There’s no porn.’
‘What’d you find then, Dhar?’ said Matt. ‘I know you too well, can totally tell when you’re hiding something. And he’s hiding something.’ This was directed at Mona, who smiled tersely.
‘Nice idea to add the grilled chicken, Harj,’ said Ash.
‘Simple enough,’ said Harj from the head of the table. ‘Organic meat and fire.’
‘Nah, I hate it when my meat’s on fire,’ said Matt. ‘Like, say, when you pee.’
Mona ignored him. ‘Ash, what did you find?’
‘Some writing.’
‘Of Brij’s? What kind of writing?’
‘A novel, maybe?’
‘Really? Brij wrote a book? Let’s see it!’
‘Like father, like son,’ said Matt, nodding sagely. ‘Mee pah-dray, soo pah-dray.’
Harj, poking at his salad, had lost interest: how frivolous to make up stories when there were war orphans to be saved!
‘Will you do anything with it?’ said Mona.
‘Do? What would I do?’
‘Try to get it published or something?’
‘Just like that? “Get it published?” As one might “get groceries” or “get fat?” ’
‘Or get an STD!’ added Matt.
‘How am I to know how it works,’ said Mona. ‘You’re the one who wrote a book.’
‘Here’s an idea, Dhar,’ said Matt. He’d taken command of the conversation and his captaincy was deranged: Ahab without a whale, madly harpooning the waves. ‘Just put it out under your name. None of us would say anything.’
‘Plagiarize my dead dad’s book, you mean,’ said Ash.
‘Can you not say that?’ said Mona. ‘ “My dead dad”—you sound almost gleeful.’
Harj went outside to take a call. Matt, now in comic mode, glanced around for fresh material. Ash headed him off: ‘Do you want to hear what it’s about?’
‘Please,’ said Mona.
‘Far as I can tell it’s just about a guy climbing a mountain, in Kashmir, I think, to some cave. And there’s something up there that’s going to, I don’t know, save him?’
‘Sounds like Amarnath,’ said Mona.
‘What’s that?’
‘Shiva’s dink,’ said Mona.
Matt perked up again. ‘Tell me more!’
‘It’s this pilgrimage that Hindus do,’ said Mona. ‘They walk up into the Himalayas to this cave, which they insist on calling a temple, where there’s an ice stalagmite they claim is Shiva’s dink. And they ogle it and come back down, protected by the army, while meanwhile the Muslims who live in the villages they go parading through are digging up mass graves of their family members murdered by those same soldiers, probably.’
‘Well, no. What Brij was writing is a story. It could be based on anything—’
‘It’s totally Amarnath,’ said Mona.
‘So, wait,’ said Matt. ‘Dinks are holy in India?’
‘A lingam,’ said Ash, ‘is a symbol of Shiva that has a phallic shape. Not a dink.’
‘And dudes hike up to this…symbol?’
‘Women too, Matthew,’ said Mona, and gazed out the screen door to the deck, where Harj, with his phone to his ear, nodded and laughed and furiously picked his nose.
‘Anyway,’ said Ash, ‘Brij’s book seems less about dink worship than the quest itself.’
‘Can you hold off on interpretations until we’ve heard the actual story?’ said Mona.
‘Yeah,’ said Matt. ‘What happens?’
‘That’s the thing. That’s it. Just climbing.’
‘Just climbing,’ said Mona. ‘The guy—’
‘The hero, Brij calls him.’
‘Right. The hero, then, never gets to the top?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sounds riveting.’
‘I want to read it when you’re done,’ said Matt. ‘Frozen dink quest, I love it!’
‘Except there’s no ending,’ said Ash. ‘Like, it just cuts off. So maybe he did have something else planned.’
Matt slapped the table. ‘You’ve got to write one!’
‘I can’t believe Brij wrote a book,’ said Mona. ‘When did he do this?’
‘I don’t know. There’s no date on it or anything. I was thinking that when Matt and I head into Montreal—’
‘So you’re really leaving?’
‘I told you this. Sherene’s scheduled studio time tomorrow morning for this big interview for our holiday show. Plus a book club visit. And since they’ve got me staying out by the airport, after that I’ll likely just fly home to Toronto. And I can help with everything here from home. Right? Sorry, Mona. Not my fault. I just really have to go.’
‘We’ve got to go,’ said Matt. He turned to Mona. ‘I’m leaving too.’
‘What book club, Ash? Tell me you didn’t take Doctor Bloch up on that invite.’
‘What was I going to say?’
‘I don’t know, maybe, “Sorry, my dad just passed away, can’t make it?” Or, “Not sure this is the time or place to be soliciting celebrity guests for your literary luncheons?” ’ His sister stood to clear the dishes.
‘Oh, come on, I’m not much of a celebrity.’
She swept past him with an armload of plates.
‘Hey, wait!’ Ash called after her. ‘What I was saying was that we’re going by Brij’s office to see if there’s a finished version of this thing on his computer. The Amarnath story, I mean. And obviously if I find anything I’ll email it to you and we can read it together!’
No reply, just a great thunder of silverware clattering into the sink.
‘Could be cool? Mona?’
The taps came on. But his sister said nothing.
Matt, though, was keen. ‘Don’t worry, Dhar,’ he said, with a bounce of his eyebrows. ‘I love a good mystery. Just like Jekyll and Hyde, chasing down the clues.’
‘Do you mean Watson and Holmes?’
‘Whatever.’ Matt leaned back, laced his fingers behind his head. ‘All that matters is you and me, bro, finishing your dad’s quest to see the ice dong.’
3
SO THEY ESCAPED: down through the hills in Matt’s pickup. As the roundabout wheeled them to the highway Matt wistfully watched the ski resort fade from view, the mountain like a pound cake drizzled with some pale and creamy sauce.
‘Next time,’ Ash said.
And off they went to Montreal.
In the duffel at Ash’s feet was his dad’s manuscript. For now, he took out Into the Night. Two hundred pages remained unread. On the back cover was its author, gloating in full colour.
‘That’s who you’re interviewing?’ said Matt. ‘He looks cool, not like a writer at all.’
‘Why don’t you read it for me then?’
‘Nah, I’m no reader. Last book I read was…Yours, probably.’
Ash returned Into the Night to his bag.
They were quiet for a while. The world rolled by: half-frozen fields and black barren trees. Matt turned on the radio, discovered only French stations and flipped it off. Wet snow began slashing down and melting on the windscreen. Ash watched the wipers swish back and forth, the glass spangled and wiped clean.
‘Get my one-hitter from the glove box,’ said Matt. ‘Should be loaded. Help yourself.’
The pipe was modeled to look like a cigarette and came in a sleek wooden case. Ash smoked, exhaled, enjoyed the heat in his chest spiralling outward, passed it to Matt as his head went loopy and strange. Yet for Matt, a couple puffs turned him focused. Normal.
‘So that hike? The one into the mountains?’
‘The one in my dad’s book?’
‘Yeah. The one Mona was talking about. Why do people do it?’
‘I don’t know. Religion, I guess. You should have asked Mona, she’s the India expert. She was actually in Kashmir a few years ago doing her Mother Teresa thing.’
‘I searched it online. Looks like Banff. With way more brown folks.’
‘When
my dad really missed home he used to go to Lake Louise. There was one spot he said that looked just like this place where his family went on holiday when he was a kid, the Golden Meadow or something like that…’
‘Did I tell you about the German girl I dated the summer I spent out there?’
‘Yes. You told everybody. Please don’t—’
‘Dhar, honestly? Getting peed on can be a beautiful thing.’
‘Stop. Just—stop.’
Matt giggled. ‘Load that thing up again.’
Ash did, took a toot, passed it over. He felt giddy and loose. His mouth was woolly.
‘So can anyone go on that hike?’
‘Pilgrimage. For Hindus. It’s not a tourist thing.’
‘Frigging French drivers!’ Matt hammered the horn. ‘Tabernacle!’
‘Why, are you thinking of going to India?’
‘For a fistful of god-cock, bro. I’m going to ride that thing to freedom.’
‘Don’t. Ever. Okay? This is thousands of years of history and tradition.’
‘Come on,’ Matt said. ‘Could be fun, me and you. When was the last time we took a vacation together?’
‘We’re going to Montreal right now.’
‘That’s not what I mean. Remember our trips to Tremblant and Blue Mountain? I’d always have to tighten your boots because you couldn’t do it yourself.’ Matt snorted. ‘Imagine us riding moguls down the Himalayas?’
‘Are you out of your mind? Kashmir is a war zone. You’ve seen those kidnappings and decapitations on CNN? That’d be you, with your big dumb bald head sawn off and dangled before some jihadist’s camcorder.’
‘So is that a maybe?’
‘The Champlain Bridge should be coming up in a bit. Just drive us off it. Full speed.’
‘Know what your problem is?’
‘I’ve got one idea.’
‘You need to get laid.’
‘Right. Your solution to everything.’
‘Honestly, when was the last time?’
‘Once we hit the bridge, take a hard right, okay? Do us both a favour.’
‘When, Ash? Honestly. When?’
‘Leave me alone.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
They drove for a while in silence, Matt with a cheeky smile and Ash watching the snow gust across the highway in phantasmal wisps. The fields on either side were a washed-out murk. Something about them reminded Ash of his dad’s book. All those looping, ethereal sentences leading to that final, unfinished line, like a pathway to the mouth of a cave, with whatever followed lost in gloom.
Here was the river, the city, the mountain hefting out of the misty snowfall like some dormant beast. Though mountain was such a funny word for that hump of gravel and scrub. ‘Some mountain,’ Brij had scoffed. ‘Hardly royal, either.’ Having been born among actual mountains, the subject of an actual king, in his more exasperated moments Brij had liked to cast the whole province as a mockery of his homeland. ‘Separatism?’ he’d cry. ‘These stupid Quebecois don’t know how good they have it.’
And he’d been so resistant to French, too. Despite years of private tutoring, as if in protest his bonjour still rhymed with ganja, his noir came out ‘nwah’—like a burlesque kiss—and his consonants gurgled and hacked. There was something Arabic about Brij’s French: a little too glottal, a little too phlegmy.
The bridge was gridlocked.
‘Rush hour, looks like,’ said Matt. ‘La ur da rush.’
They inched forward. Matt laid on the horn.
‘Why?’ said Ash.
Matt shrugged, eyeing the city, its downtown a cluster of tombstones in the dim light. ‘Hey,’ he said, with sudden brightness. ‘Let’s make a stop.’
‘Oh dear god. Where?’
‘Dhar, trust me. I’m thirsty. And you need to loosen up.’
—
ASH HAD NOT BEEN to a strip club in a decade. Following Matt inside with his eyes on his shoes, he felt the need to text Sherene. To confess, but also to justify his unease in terms of sexism—the objectification, the abjection—rather than a lack of expertise. But an ominous No pictures, no video sign banished his phone to his pocket. He already felt like a kid sneaking in somewhere dubious and forbidden. No sense getting in trouble too.
Matt, of course, was a pro, nodding collegially to the doorman and leading Ash toward the stage. ‘Not pervert’s row,’ Matt instructed. ‘One table back. So the girls can see you but don’t figure you for a total creep.’
Flirting brazenly with the waitress Matt ordered ‘duh sank-aunts, see-voo-play’ while Ash eyed the woman twisting around the pole a few feet away. The place smelled of stale beer and tobacco guttering amid the floral malaise of a funeral parlour; the lighting recalled a submarine. The clientele at this hour—mid-afternoon—was scant: one guy alone at the bar thumbing his phone and a couple of American college boys (backward caps, goatees) a few tables over, gawking like toddlers plopped down before a TV.
The song faded. The dancer readjusted. Everything went still for a moment.
My dad is dead, thought Ash.
A second number began. Their beers arrived. Ash swallowed half.
‘That’s the spirit,’ said Matt, clapping his back. ‘You like her, eh?’
The woman was dark-complexioned, possibly Middle Eastern. As she knelt and tilted back, humping the air with her pelvis, Ash struggled not to think of Sherene. ‘Mare-see bow-coupe, sherry.’ Matt lifted his beer, turned to Ash. ‘Man, if we go to India I’m going to have to do some serious Karma Sutra training.’
‘You and I are never, ever going to India,’ said Ash. ‘And it’s Kama. Karma is the infections you’ll bring home.’
‘But what if you can’t find the end to your dad’s book? We’ll need to head over there to figure it out. Jack off the ice dick and that. See what comes out.’
‘Why do you care?’
‘Meh, I guess it doesn’t really matter,’ said Matt with a shrug.
So dismissive! Who was he—this interloper, this fool—to decide what mattered and didn’t? Angrily Ash downed his beer and signalled the bartender for another.
The announcer came on and told them to give it up for Cyprus. Matt hooted. Waving, she dismounted the stage, collected three beers from the bar, and brought them, shockingly, to their table.
‘No French,’ apologized Matt. ‘Nuh-pah parlay frawn-say.’
‘Good,’ said the girl, sitting between them. ‘I can practice my English.’
‘Cyprus, meet my best buddy Ash.’
‘Hi,’ said Ash.
‘Enchantée,’ said Cyprus.
‘His dad just died.’
‘Smooth,’ said Ash.
Cyprus reached across the table, took Ash’s hand. The contact was not unwelcome. ‘That’s terrible,’ she said, caressing his thumb. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I was to say to buy me a drink,’ she said. ‘But maybe I’m going to buy you?’
‘That’s okay,’ said Ash. ‘We’re just here for this last one, and then…’
A new dancer was introduced: ‘Please welcome Sylvie!’ Cyprus clapped and whistled. The woman strutting out from backstage gave her a wink. Ash, his hand orphaned on the tabletop, felt forsaken.
Sylvie began her first number from a handstand.
‘Gosh-dang I love black women,’ said Matt.
Ash sighed. ‘Can you not say stuff like that, please?’
‘It’s true! White women too. Not to mention’—he nodded at their guest—‘brown.’
‘Sorry,’ Ash told Cyprus.
But she was watching the stage with a grin. ‘This girl, she is my…coloc?’
‘Roommate,’ said Ash.
‘Room, mate.’
‘Look at you two getting along like a Taj Mahal on fire,’ said Matt, punching Ash in the shoulder, spilling his beer. ‘How about a little private session?’
‘No,’ said Ash.
‘VIP, bro. Dons-con-tack. It’s on me
.’
‘Only if you want?’ said Cyprus. Once again, she took Ash’s hand, squeezed his fingers. Ash squeezed back.
‘One thing though,’ said Matt, handing his car keys to Ash. ‘If you’re getting a dons, I’m going to pound a few bee-airs, so you’re driving. Now go allay-zee a bun time.’
Cyprus stood, lifting him by the hand. And Ash went, feeling bullied, limp and led.
—
ASH HAD BEEN THE RECIPIENT of one previous lap-dance in his life, when he was seventeen, courtesy of—who else?—Matt, already among the lunchtime regulars at London’s Fabulous Forum. Out of curiosity and a dim instinct toward rebellion Ash had joined him one noonhour. They’d barely sat down before one of the dancers straddled his knees.
‘I can’t pay you,’ he whispered.
‘It’s okay,’ she told him, draping her arms around his neck. Braces glittered on her teeth; her breath smelled of peanut butter. ‘Your friend’s got a tab.’
That Ash had ejaculated less than a minute later had been a secret until a moment of drunken candor months later, when he confessed stashing his soggy boxers in the toilet tank. He expected ridicule. Instead Matt tousled his hair—as a father might, imparting some life-lesson—and said, ‘Ah, whatevs, Dhar. Happens to the best of us.’
This time, nearly twenty years later, was different. In a space reminiscent of a police interrogation room (complete with two-way mirror), Cyprus deposited him on a lumpy couch, pressed play on a boom box in the corner and came at him, swaying at the hips.
‘Tell me what I’m going to do,’ she said, slipping out of her top until it hung loosely around her waist.
‘You don’t have to do anything,’ Ash said.
‘Viens,’ she said. ‘Touch me if you wish.’
She turned her back to him, bent over, took his hands and placed them on her hips.
Ash felt like the passenger on a motorcycle.
‘Touch my breast,’ she said.
Ash groped upwards. She placed her hands over his, squeezed. The pocks of her nipples pressed into his palms. Cyprus turned to face him, wedged a knee between his legs and, moving between them, began massaging his thighs.
He moved his hands to her buttocks, one cheek cupped in each.
She leaned in so close her nipples brushed his lips.
He closed his eyes.
She popped two buttons, reached inside his shirt, caressed his chest.