On a Thursday night in October, Marc and Ms. Farber left to attend a function at their synagogue, and they planned on sleeping in Woodford. This would be Marc’s third night away that week, which irritated Siddharth. What was the point of putting up with Ms. Farber if it didn’t mean more time with Marc? What was the point of letting her fuck his father? He shed some of his anger when Mohan Lal declared that he was treating him and Barry Uncle to dinner at Pasta Palace.
The place was packed that night, with dozens of cops. They were in uniform, laughing, shouting, and drinking. Mohan Lal told the hostess to get Mustafa, but she said he was busy in the kitchen. It took them twenty minutes to get a table, and once they were seated, the waitress took ages to gather their orders. Barry Uncle thumped Mohan Lal on the back. “Boss, if this is how they treat VIPs here, I’d hate to be an ordinary customer.”
Siddharth was starving by this point, and he thought Barry Uncle was right. But he needed to stick up for his father. “Trust me, Barry Uncle. The wait is worth it.”
Mustafa eventually showed up with a complimentary round of drinks—more whiskey for the men, and a Coke for Siddharth. He also brought over a free order of fried mozzarella.
Barry Uncle had a weird smile on his face. “Mustafa-ji, I’ve heard a lot about you, boss.”
Mustafa laughed, stroking his thick moustache. “Well, Arora sahib here is one of our best customers. His wife, she was such a fine lady.”
Siddharth coughed on his Coke and the table fell silent. After an uncomfortable pause, Barry Uncle asked, “So what about you? You married, Mustafa?”
Mustafa broke into a big smile. “Oh, very happily married indeed. I’m very blessed, actually. I got two daughters—twin girls.” He pulled his wallet out and handed Barry Uncle a picture. Siddharth glanced over and saw two baby girls wearing little dresses. He had to admit they were cute despite their very dark skin.
“Girls, eh?” said Barry Uncle. He handed the photo back and finished his whiskey in a single gulp. Then he took a long sip of the other one that had come for free. “Tell me something. You gonna make those little darlings cover up their heads?”
Mustafa’s lips gaped but no words came out.
“Because those kids are sweet,” continued Barry Uncle, “and it would be a shame to cover up their little heads.”
Siddharth knew that Barry Uncle shouldn’t have said this, but a part of him was glad—for in that moment, he loathed Mustafa for bringing up his mother. Staring at Mustafa, he saw anger flash in his eyes—a cold, hard look. But then it vanished, and Mustafa was his usual smiley self again. He said, “Well, folks, I better be going. A lotta work to do tonight. The PBA’s here—annual function. Don’t wanna tick off the coppers. Am I right?”
Mustafa started walking away, but Barry Uncle grabbed his wrist. “Hang on, man. Let’s finish our little conversation. Your wife—you make her cover her head too?”
Siddharth now realized that Barry Uncle had crossed a line, and he wanted his father to intervene. But Mohan Lal was gobbling a saucy bite of fried mozzarella, which dripped onto the tablecloth. He swiped it with his finger and lobbed it onto his tongue. Siddharth winced at his father’s dining manners.
Mustafa dusted off his shirt and gazed around the restaurant. “You know what, gentlemen? Dinner’s on me tonight. The service is gonna be slow, so consider it an early Christmas present.”
Siddharth said, “Wow, Mustafa, that’s really nice of you.”
“Mustafa mia,” said Barry Uncle, “one more question for you.”
“Barry Uncle,” said Siddharth, glaring in his direction.
“Your wife—she’s your cousin, right? You people still do that, right?”
Chewing his fried mozzarella, Mohan Lal mumbled, “Enough, Barry. Let Mustafa get back to work.”
Mustafa definitely wasn’t smiling anymore. He was rubbing his neck and looked as if he might hit someone. Siddharth made a plan: If Mustafa hit Barry Uncle, he would grab Mohan Lal and run. If he hit Mohan Lal, however, then he would have to retaliate. He would give him a sharp kick—right to the balls.
Barry Uncle said, “Wait . . . don’t tell you married your own sister. Mustafa, that that would be too much. That’s when we get into problems.”
Mustafa put both of his hands on their green tablecloth and leaned forward. He said something sharp in Hindi that Siddharth couldn’t understand.
Siddharth prayed for Barry Uncle to apologize.
“Mustafa-ji.” Barry Uncle emptied his whiskey into his mouth, then slammed the glass down on the table. “Mustafa-ji, how many thumbs do your little girls have? How many toes? Because if you married your sister, you better count those toes.”
Mustafa switched back to his guido English: “You know what, guys? We’re gonna need this table sooner than I thought. Why don’t I get your food wrapped up tonight? Why don’t you eat it at home?”
Mohan Lal stood up, dabbing his face with his napkin. “Good idea. That’s a very good idea.”
Siddharth glanced to the right and saw a gaggle of police officers staring in their direction.
Mustafa placed a hand Mohan Lal’s shoulder. “Arora sahib,” he said, “see you again—soon, I hope. But I’d lose the friend if I were you.”
Mohan Lal cocked his head to one side. “What was that?”
“Yous are always welcome in my restaurant. Always. Just not him.”
Shit, Siddharth thought. Mohan Lal was going to say something stupid. Something that could get them arrested.
Mohan Lal clasped Siddharth’s arm and yanked him out of his seat. “Come, son. Get away from that bloody mullah.”
3
Trick or Treat
For the first time in his life, Siddharth found himself actually looking forward to school. In junior high, he felt a new sense of freedom. He got to walk by himself to his classes, not like the primary-school drones with their regimented routines and single-file lines. He tried to plan his routes so that he could use the breezeway, an open-air corridor with a roof but no walls. The breezeway reminded him that he could flee the premises any time he wanted, and he used it even when it was raining.
Having his own locker that he could decorate any way he chose was another source of simple but constant pleasure. He put up a picture of Kurt Cobain that he’d ripped out of one of Marc’s copies of Rolling Stone, and a photo of a television actress in a sports bra from one of Sharon’s teen magazines. Luca gave him a magnetic mirror from his father’s beauty salon, and Siddharth used it at least twice a day to brush his hair, which was now long on top and shaved on the sides.
In some ways, Luca had changed over the summer. He was taller and had lost some weight. He dressed better, wearing brown moccasins and tucking in his shirts. A little stubble now shadowed his cheeks, and he had long, stylish sideburns, like the actors in 90210. He even acted fairly normally around other people, talking about sports with boys and listening to girls as if he really liked hearing about their summer breaks. But he would then do something to remind Siddharth that he was the same old Luca, like telling a joke about Mrs. Wadsworth sitting on someone’s face.
Luca liked to say good morning to the dorks in a voice that sounded retarded. He often snapped Carol Corcoran’s bra as she opened her locker, but strangely, Carol didn’t seem to mind. In fact, Luca and Siddharth were getting close to Carol, one of the pretty girls from Lower Housatonic Elementary. She and her friends were good at sports, but also liked to smoke cigarettes and drink wine coolers. Even though these girls had older boyfriends, they hugged Siddharth in the hallways or gave him a squeeze on the waist.
Each morning, he met Luca at his locker, and the pair combed the hallways together before the first bell, talking shit and joking around. Eddie Benson usually joined them, and by the second week of October, a whole squad of seventh graders was following them around. Random wiggers and metalheads who Siddharth knew through Marc—grubbers, as Luca called them—nodded their heads as they passed him by, and Marc’s friend Cor
ey Thompson always stopped Siddharth to shake his hand. Sometimes Corey asked him if he could borrow twenty bucks, so he would steal a bit of extra cash from his father’s wallet. Corey always paid him back, occasionally with a buck or two of interest or a miniature bottle of rum.
Siddharth was developing a reputation for being smart and funny, and he didn’t want to ruin this, which was why he was perpetually anxious about being seen with Sharon Nagorski outside of class. If Luca saw them together, there would be trouble. Fortunately, she didn’t pay Siddharth any attention in the hallways, and in the morning, when everyone else was roving and socializing, she went to the band room to practice her trumpet. She did the same thing at lunch, and, thankfully, she only mentioned Luca a single time during the fall semester.
It had happened on a Monday morning in science class. Sharon said that Siddharth seemed upset, and he told her that he was just tired after a crazy weekend.
“Why, what did you do?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just hung out with a couple friends.”
“Friends? Oh, you mean Luca—Mr. Asshole?”
“Take it easy. Once you get to know him, he’s not that bad.”
“Sure,” said Sharon, blowing her bangs out of her eyes.
“Hey, it takes two to tango, you know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you just sit there and take it. If you want him to respect you, you should say something back.”
“Whatever,” said Sharon. “I’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
“You mean your boyfriend?”
She smiled, revealing a dimple. “He took me out to Pasta Palace on Sunday. The bill was, like, forty dollars.”
* * *
By the end of October, Siddharth was going over to Luca’s on most Saturdays. The house was dark and old-fashioned. Luca’s family room had a La-Z-Boy recliner, which was great for watching movies. It had thick brown carpets and a wallpaper mural of the Grand Canyon. This wallpaper reminded Siddharth of the mural that had once adorned his own family room, back when his mother was still around—before Ms. Farber had taken over his father’s life.
Mrs. Peroti had grown fond of Siddharth. She cooked him fresh manicotti or ravioli, always sending him home with some. She said, “I got plenty of pasta for you. Just keep my Luca outta trouble.”
Luca would mutter the strangest things in front of his mother. One time, when she was cooking and watching television, he said, “Ma, do you like pussy better, or cock?”
When she turned around, her blue eyes were blazing, and her ringed fingers were clasping one of her ample hips. “Did you just say what I think you did?”
Luca threw his hands in the air. “Jeez, Ma, I asked you a simple question—are you a Pepsi woman, or are you into Coke?”
In moments like these, Siddharth’s heart beat quickly, and yet he couldn’t help but grin. Luca was definitely one of the funniest people he’d ever met, and Siddharth was pretty sure that Arjun would like him.
Initially, he avoided spending the night at Luca’s, as he had heard about the crazy things that Luca and Eddie did during sleepovers. They went out shitting houses, which had once consisted of spray-painting dirty words on people’s driveways but had evolved into more serious acts of vandalism, like burning mailboxes and shattering windows. Sometimes Luca and Eddie sat in the woods by the edge of the Merritt Parkway and chucked stones at passing cars.
When Siddharth finally decided it was time to spend the night at his new friend’s house, it was because he was sure Eddie wasn’t going to be there. He ended up having a good time. He and Luca just sat around listening to music and talking, and they also taught Luca’s little brother how to ride a bicycle with training wheels. At night, over a game of Monopoly, Luca said he’d heard that Marc was smoking reefer.
“Smoking what?” said Siddharth.
“You know—grass.”
“I haven’t heard anything about that.” But he knew Marc was getting stoned, and the truth was, he was nicer high. When Marc came home stoned, they stayed up late talking, and he asked Siddharth interesting questions: “If the world was ending and you could only save one person—would it be your dad? Or the president?” “If you had to kill yourself, would you do it with a gun, or by jumping off a bridge? Keep in mind that I hear drowning yourself is the most painless way to die.” These conversations made Siddharth feel older. They made him feel that his special connection with Marc wasn’t totally dead.
Luca said, “Yo, weed’s fucked up, kid.”
“Why’s it fucked up? You’re always talking about getting hammered.”
“Yeah, but that’s different.”
“If anyone can take care of himself, it’s Marc.”
“All I’m saying is that reefer’s for porch monkeys.”
“For what?”
“For jigaboos,” said Luca.
These were new terms for Siddharth. But he knew they were racist, and that made him nervous. Racism was definitely bad. His father had called racists the biggest cowards.
All of a sudden, there was a knock at the door, and Mr. Peroti barged in. He was a beanpole of a man with a thick Italian accent who put in twelve-hour days at his Howard Avenue beauty salon.
“Boys,” announced Mr. Peroti, “time for dinner.”
“Dad,” said Luca, “this kid doesn’t know what a porch monkey is.”
“Enough porch monkey talk,” said Mr. Peroti. “I get enough of that at work.”
“One question, Dad: how do you get all that nigger sweat off you—all those pointy little Negro hairs?”
Siddharth’s stomach tightened. He counted his Monopoly money to avoid making eye contact with either of them. He had heard the N-word said in movies and on Marc’s rap tapes. But this was the first time he was hearing it said in real life—the first time he was hearing it said by a regular person. He told himself that his friend was joking, that he needed to lighten up.
“You’re bad,” said Mr. Peroti, who was shaking his head but smiling. “Hurry up, Luca. Your mom’s gonna chop off your hands.”
* * *
Halloween was on a Sunday that year. Luca invited him and Eddie to come straight over to his house from school. The plan was to go trick-or-treating in his neighborhood and then have a sleepover. Siddharth was excited, but anxious. The thought of ending up in handcuffs just two months before his thirteenth birthday wasn’t appealing. Not to mention, Luca was on the same bus route as Sharon Nagorski. Luca had told him about the things he said to her on the way home from school—that she was a slut, a loser, a wild boar. When Luca gloated over his cruelty, a part of Siddharth wanted to say that Sharon had changed—that she was cool once you got to know her. But he would always just laugh before changing the subject.
As Halloween approached, Siddharth tried to figure out an alternate way of getting to Luca’s. But Ms. Farber wouldn’t be around that afternoon, and his father had an evening class. Mohan Lal said he could drop off Siddharth at nine, but that wouldn’t work because then he would miss the best part of the evening.
On Halloween morning, it started drizzling as Siddharth and Timmy Connor made their way to the Miller farmhouse, passing smiling jack-o-lanterns and garbage bags bursting with decomposing brown leaves. Timmy told him about a new pellet gun that his father had gotten him for his fourteenth birthday, and how he had used it to kill a squirrel. Siddharth was too worked up to listen. He had a note in his pocket that gave him permission to take the bus home with Luca. He wondered if he should crumple it up and throw it into the sewer.
For some reason, Sharon wasn’t in English class, and he felt a deep sense of relief. Maybe she was absent. But when he walked into science, she was standing at their station, preparing materials for the day’s lab. She was wearing a strange homemade costume, which consisted of a yellow T-shirt with pieces of cardboard attached on the side. There was also a disc-shaped piece of golden cardboard on her head. He said, “What the hell are you supposed to be?”
Sharon told him that the entire band had dressed up as their instruments. “What about you?” she asked. “Too cool for costumes?”
“I didn’t feel like dressing up,” said Siddharth.
“Are you going out tonight?”
He responded with silence.
She poked him in the chest. “Hey, is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. I gotta go to the bathroom.”
Siddharth grabbed the lav pass and headed down the hallway. He was glad that that the bathroom was empty. He placed his hands on the sink and stared at himself in the mirror, noting that the little hairs above his lip were getting thicker. If he could only hang out with Marc tonight, then he wouldn’t be worrying about any of this. But Marc was going out with Andy Wurtzel, and that was the way things were now. Siddharth recalled a conversation he’d had with his father, after their last dinner at Pasta Palace. He had asked Mohan Lal why he hadn’t stood up for Mustafa when the man was always so nice to them. Mohan Lal said, “Son, you’ll understand once you’re my age. One has to be true to his values. And there is no greater virtue than loyalty.”
Siddharth gave the paper towel dispenser a solid punch with the top two knuckles of his right hand, just as he had learned in karate. As usual, his father’s words were of no help to him. He had no idea which one of his friends was more deserving of his loyalty.
* * *
When the last bell of the day sounded, he found Luca at his locker with Eddie whispering into his ear.
“Yo, what’s up?” said Siddharth.
“We’re just doing some planning,” said Eddie.
“What’s the plan?” asked Siddharth.
“The plan?” said Eddie. “Tonight we’re gonna pop your cherry. Tonight we’re gonna get you a freaking mailbox.”
“Pop your cherry,” repeated Luca, shaking his head and smiling.
Luca and Eddie boarded the school bus first, and Siddharth followed behind. He handed his note to the driver, who was wearing a mesh baseball cap. Siddharth spotted Sharon in the sixth row. Fortunately, she was staring out the window. Holding his breath, he kept his eyes glued to the ribbed rubber walkway and scurried past her. Luca and Eddie were seated in the second-to-last row, and Siddharth sat alone in the seat before theirs. The bus pulled out of the lot, and a ninth grade girl in the back lifted a live rabbit from her backpack. Everyone cooed over it for most of the ride. At one point, Eddie grabbed the animal and held it up to his face, miming that he was giving it cunnilingus. Siddharth chuckled, but he tried to keep himself from laughing too hard. As the bus navigated the quiet, soggy streets of South Haven, he occasionally stole furtive glances at Sharon. Maybe she hadn’t even realized he was there. Twenty-five minutes into the ride, he saw her gather her things and prepare to leave. He was grateful that the journey had passed without any incident.
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