South Haven

by Hirsh Sawhney

  Arjun was pacing around the kitchen. “No, it’s the other one about Hindu-Muslim violence.”

  She clicked her tongue, then started reading to herself. Arjun interrupted and told her to read the piece out loud. “Siddharth should hear this,” he said. “He should know what his family is really all about.”

  “You know, you and your father are actually quite similar.” Ms. Farber cleared her throat. “‘Shattered Dreams of Democracy’ by Arup Sengupta. During the first weeks of the year, the journalist Tiliptuma Sharma Sengupta—my daughter-in-law—was covering the so-called “Bombay Riots,” which have claimed the lives of thousands of individuals, some Hindus, but mostly Muslims. On the evening of January 18, she was looking on as a Hindu mob gathered in a busy commercial locality, home to printing presses and clothing stores. These shops were owned by Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and Parsis, an unsurprisingly eclectic mixture of people in one of the world’s most historically cosmopolitan metropolises.”

  Siddharth was listening, but he couldn’t make much sense of what was being read. He had never been to Bombay. His relatives had told him that it was even dirtier than Delhi.

  “The Hindu mob started chanting slogans about their motherland. A few men broke away, entering certain stores and pulling out various shopkeepers. Each of the stores they targeted had a Muslim proprietor, and the men who were pulled onto the street were also Muslims, though you wouldn’t have been able to know this by looking at them. They were wearing western—”

  “Skip to the next paragraph,” said Arjun.

  “Three Hindu men proceeded to throw tires around one of these Muslims, a young man named Hassan Khan, and they doused him in petroleum. My daughter-in-law struggled to get in front of the assailants, but the mob thwarted her efforts. The Hindu rioters then lit Mr. Khan on fire. As he burned to death, he begged for mercy, but not a single person came to his rescue.”

  As Ms. Farber read, Siddharth found himself intrigued. The things she was reading seemed like something from a movie—not events that could happen in real life.

  “My daughter-in-law ran toward a group of loitering policemen standing five hundred feet away. She implored them to intervene, but they ignored her, even after she had flashed her press credentials. Later, she tried to print an account of what she had witnessed in a major Indian newspaper, but her editor—”

  “Enough!” snapped Mohan Lal. “Christ, I’ve heard enough.”

  “Let her finish,” said Arjun. He seated himself on the kitchen counter.

  “No,” said Mohan Lal. “We are having a family breakfast, not a seminar of your leftist propaganda.”

  Ms. Farber removed her reading glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. “This . . . Mo, did this really happen?”

  “Of course it happened,” said Arjun. “It’s right there in the Times.”

  “Yah, yah, yah,” said Mohan Lal, standing up. “That bloody paper is the gospel. Jesus, I can’t believe it—I’ve raised a bloody Congress-wallah.”

  Arjun jumped off the counter and stood a foot away from his father. “Why does everything have to be so black or white with you? And for your information, Dad, you didn’t raise me.”

  Siddharth could see spit fly from his brother’s mouth. He could see his father’s lips quivering. He wanted to intervene but remained frozen.

  “Yes,” said Mohan Lal, “I just sat there and watched.”

  “You said it,” said Arjun. “You know, Mom was right about you. Face it, you weren’t cut out for parenting.”

  Ms. Farber reached for Mohan Lal’s wrist. “Arjun, I know you don’t mean that.”

  “Oh, I do,” said Arjun. “But actually, I’m grateful. Thanks to my mother, I’m not a fascist. If it wasn’t for her, I might actually believe that people should die because of their religion. Who knows, I might even believe that a person should die because of the color of their skin.”

  “Now Arjun, your father doesn’t think any of those things,” said Ms. Farber.

  Mohan Lal stepped closer toward Arjun. “No, my son understands me quite well. Arjun, I have learned one truth in my life.”

  “And what’s that, Dad? Please—share your wisdom.”

  “What I’ve learned is that a Muslim can’t be trusted. The only good Muslim is a dead one.”

  Arjun gritted his teeth. He clenched his fist and raised it behind his ear.

  “Arjun . . .” said Siddharth. Tears dripped from his eyes.

  Mohan Lal smirked. “Yes, my Gandhian son. Go ahead, hit your father.”

  Arjun glanced at him, then clasped his hands behind his head. “It’s funny,” he said, his voice cracking, “you spend your whole life reading, Dad, and yet you’re still like a child. You’re still so fucking ignorant.”

  “Then why remain in my presence?” asked Mohan Lal. “Why remain in my home?”

  “Finally, we’re on the same page about something.”

  “Talking like a man is one thing. Acting the part is another.”

  Arjun stormed to the guest room and slammed the door. Siddharth let himself in and watched as his brother hurriedly packed his duffel. Arjun then ran through the house and out the front door. He stowed his bag in the trunk of his borrowed Honda. As he got into the car, Siddharth literally clung to him. “Where are you going?”

  “Home,” said Arjun, buckling his seat belt.

  “But you are home.”

  “No I’m not. This isn’t my home anymore.”

  “If you go, I’ll tell him about your girlfriend.”

  “You think I give a shit?” said Arjun.

  “I’ll tell him you’re on drugs.”

  Arjun lit a cigarette. He started the engine and rolled down the driveway. His tires squeaked as he charged up the hill.

  Siddharth sat down on the front steps, allowing his salty tears to coat his tongue. He remained outside for fifteen minutes, but his brother didn’t return. The only vehicle that appeared belonged to the postman.

  9

  Riot

  “Kid, I know what we gotta do,” said Eddie B., chewing on cheese-flavored popcorn. “We gotta get her mailbox. We’ll wreck that shit.”

  Marc shook his head, his lips curled in a disdainful grin. “What a bunch of losers. You don’t have anything better to do? Don’t you know any women?”

  “Eddie, it’s not happening,” said Luca. He grabbed the popcorn and flicked his bangs to one side. “She’s on the other side of 34. It’ll take us all night to walk it.” His left hand was wrapped around the rubber penis he’d stolen from the head shop beside his father’s salon. Occasionally, he swung this object over his head, as if it were a lasso.

  “We can take your mom’s shitter,” said Eddie, his orange eyebrows arching. “It’ll fit right in with all that white trash.”

  “No way.” Luca whipped Eddie’s leg with the phallus. “Not tonight.”

  Siddharth was only half paying attention to their banter, but the sound of his friends’ voices was soothing. The lights were dim, and he was lying on the shaggy multicolored carpet in Luca’s family room. The door that separated this room from the kitchen was made of plastic and slid open like an accordion, and the wall behind the television was lined with wooden panels. He returned his gaze to the television, on which a dark-haired man was groping a large-breasted blonde. They were on a bed with silk sheets that overlooked the sea. Eddie had rigged Luca’s cable box so that Playboy came in for free.

  After Arjun had left, Mohan Lal poured himself a stiff drink and locked himself in his office. Ms. Farber cancelled their hotel reservations, then went to the kitchen and removed all of the silverware from the drawers, polishing each and every piece before putting it back. Siddharth couldn’t believe it. What kind of freak would clean at a time like this? And why did she think she could go into their cabinets as if she owned them? He had ambled to his bedroom and sat on the floor, tapping his head against the closet door. Something bad was going to happen. Arjun was going to skid off the highway into the De
laware Water Gap.

  By the time the phone rang, Siddharth had been sure it was the police calling to say that his brother was dead. But it was Arjun himself. He was spending the night in Pennsylvania and would push on to Michigan in the morning. Ms. Farber had taken the call. She told Arjun that they’d been counting on him. She told him they were disappointed. She put down the phone without passing it to Siddharth, who imagined punching her in the face. Mohan Lal was the one who decided to leave for Atlantic City in the morning. Marc’s father was in upstate New York and Andy was in London, so Mohan Lal said the boys could stay with Barry Uncle. Siddharth said, “Dad, I’m sick of Barry Uncle. There’s no way I’m staying with him.” When Mohan Lal replied, “Fine, we’ll cancel the trip,” Siddharth thought he had triumphed. But Ms. Farber said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t I put in a call to Mrs. Peroti?”

  Marc was now on the Perotis’ brown La-Z-Boy, his arms imperiously splayed on its ample armrests. With his legs propped in the air, he looked like a reposing king. “Look,” Marc said to Luca, “you got dumped, and that sucks. And this Jeanette sounds like a real bitch. But trust me, only a few things are gonna make this better. You can get laid, or you can sleep for a couple of days. But the best thing would be to get really fucking wasted.”

  Marc pulled a lever to retract his leg rest, then sprang up and headed to the opposite corner of the room. “Yo, check this out.” He grabbed his overnight bag and pulled out Siddharth’s ornate Indian slingshot, the one Barry Uncle had given him.

  Siddharth tensed up. “What the hell’s that doing here?”

  “It’s for Luca’s rectum,” said Marc.

  Eddie laughed.

  “Come on, put it away,” said Siddharth.

  Marc dropped it to the floor, then extracted a rectangular bottle of liquor. It was green and had a deer on the label. He cracked it open. “I don’t know about you, but I’m fucking thirsty.” He took a swig and handed it to Siddharth.

  He sipped the liquor, which singed the inside of his mouth.

  “Pussy,” said Eddie. “Take a real sip.”

  “Fuck off, Eddie,” said Marc.

  Siddharth handed the bottle to Eddie, who drank some and passed it on to Luca.

  “I know a chick,” said Luca. “I know a place where we can get a little pussy.”

  “Where?” asked Eddie.

  Luca pointed his rubber penis at Siddharth. “Ask him. I hear his little friend can suck a mean cock.”

  “Who?” said Eddie.

  Siddharth rubbed his neck and glanced down at the multicolored carpet. For the first time ever, he noticed that the rug’s different colors formed a design. It might have been a tree.

  “Niggerski,” said Luca.

  “Sharon?” said Eddie. “I thought she was a lezzie.”

  “Nah. Siddharth here says she likes it up the ass.” Luca put the rubber penis near his rump and pantomimed the act of copulation. “Oh, Siddharth, give it to me.” His voice was high and screechy. “Fuck my hairy asshole.”

  Eddie laughed. So did Marc.

  Siddharth grabbed the bottle and downed a few glugs. The liquid passed straight into his throat and burned his belly. He gasped for air; his eyes were watering. “Yeah, I guess you would know how she likes it,” he said.

  Eddie cackled, then slapped him on the back.

  The door suddenly slid open, and Luca’s father barged in. Marc was quick to slip the bottle behind his back. Siddharth lunged for the remote, but Mr. Peroti got to it first. Siddharth sobered up quickly. He thought it was all over, that Mr. Peroti would get right on the phone with his father. But Mr. Peroti was smiling.

  “I know what you’re up to,” he said. “You’re all a bunch of little goats.” His accent was thick, even worse than Mohan Lal’s. “Relax, everyone. Oh, look at her. Isn’t she beautiful?” Mr. Peroti seated himself on the sofa, dangling an arm around Eddie. “You boys can relax. I’m not gonna tell your parents. But you gotta promise me something.”

  Siddharth nodded. He would promise Mr. Peroti anything he wanted.

  “Just stay away from the drugs—otherwise I beat the crap outta yous. Oh, and no homo business, please.”

  * * *

  By twelve thirty, they had cracked open a second green bottle, and the words were flowing freely off Siddharth’s tongue. He yakked about Nirvana being better than Pearl Jam, about Michigan’s Fab Five being the best team that had ever existed.

  “Yo, you don’t know shit about shit,” said Eddie. “Those guys are a bunch of ghetto-ass punks.”

  “Yo, that’s racist,” said Marc.

  Siddharth brought up his recurring worry about memories—that there was no point in having them because they just made you sad.

  “Yo, what you been smoking?” said Luca.

  “He’s right,” said Marc. “My grandfather—he has to wear a diaper. He’s not, like, Oh, I’m so glad I can remember a time when I could wipe my own fucking ass.”

  Siddharth soon realized he had never been this drunk in his life. He couldn’t stop smiling and wondered why people weren’t drunk all the time. “Guys, I need to tell you something.”

  Everybody looked at him expectantly.

  “Fuck Jeanette,” he said. “Fuck her, and fuck our fucking parents.”

  “Yeah, kid,” said Luca, putting an arm around him. “Tonight’s your night. Tonight we’re gonna get you a mailbox.”

  “Hell yeah,” said Siddharth.

  Eddie and Luca started their talk of shitting houses, bragging about a dead squirrel they had left on the front seat of a neighbor’s Corolla, a fire they had once started during leaf season; it had gotten so big that a truck had to come from another town.

  “Whatever,” said Marc, annoyed. “You guys are a bunch of shit talkers.”

  “Don’t believe me,” said Eddie. “My dad’s only a volunteer fireman.”

  “What about you, Marc?” asked Siddharth.

  Marc looked stunned for a second, but then smiled. “What was that, Sidney?”

  “I said, what about you? What have you ever shitted?”

  “It’s shat.”

  “Huh?” said Siddharth.

  “It’s not shitted, it’s shat. Learn how to speak fucking English. And I got better things to do. But trust me, back in the day, these hands got pretty dirty.”

  “Shit talker,” said Luca, waving his rubber penis.

  Marc took a swig of booze. “Ask any Woodford cop. They still keep a picture of me on the dashboard.”

  “Stories are stories,” said Eddie. “I’d like to see it with my own two eyes.”

  Marc told everyone how a couple of summers ago, when his parents had first separated, he used to sneak out with Corey Thompson, and they would break into rich people’s houses. They played these people’s video games. They ate their food and ordered pornos on pay-per-view. “Right before we left,” Marc told them, “one of us always took a shit—right there in the middle of the floor.”

  “I hate Corey,” said Luca. “White-trash motherfucker.”

  “Freaking hilarious.” Eddie clapped his hands and keeled forward with laugher.

  Siddharth turned to the television, where a naked woman was jogging down a beach at sunset. The boys passed the bottle around, and someone said it was time to get to work.

  “Fuck that,” said Marc. “I got no enemies in South Haven.”

  “Well, I do,” said Luca.

  Eddie smirked. “Niggerski?”

  “Hell yeah,” said Luca. “Fucking dyke.”

  Marc said, “Sidney, isn’t she your friend?”

  He shrugged, then reached for the bottle. As far as he was concerned, the only friends he had were sitting in this room with him right now. As far as he was concerned, loyalty was a myth. It was a bunch of bullshit that changed depending on the moment.

  “Yo Luca,” said Eddie, “tell ’em what she said.”

  “Screw you, Eddie,” said Luca.

  “Yo, we were on the bus, and Luca was
ranking on someone up front, calling them a fag.”

  “Would you shut the fuck up?” said Luca.

  “Let him speak,” said Siddharth.

  “So Niggerski stands up, her lips all quivering like a total spaz. She says, Luca, takes one to know one. We all know you’re gay. The whole bus starts cracking up.”

  Luca batted Eddie over the head with his penis.

  Eddie grabbed hold of the rubber dick. “Watch it, or I’m gonna ram this up your butthole. Oh wait, you’d probably like that.”

  All four of them were in stitches.

  * * *

  They strolled down Luca’s street, Red Fox Lane, sucking on cigars with plastic filters. The others were telling jokes, talking shit. Siddharth was wobbly and warm, so he took off his gloves. He wished he had listened to Marc, who had said it was too hot to wear a jacket, but he didn’t want to part with the red-and-green Columbia parka that Mohan Lal had bought him after one of their recent squabbles.

  The moon was strong but it was foggy out, so the few streetlights were surrounded by little halos of moisture. The lawns they passed resembled cowhide, splotches of icy white mixed with puddles of mud. He could hear water dripping from every branch, from every tailpipe of every car. Snowmelts roared like rivers in the sewers, and Siddharth thought back to the river at the state park in Hamden. When he was seven, he had gone there with his parents, and his mother had suggested they try out a hiking trail. Mohan Lal was resistant but eventually relented. They ended up getting in over their heads, walking two challenging miles over cliff and rock. Siddharth had been miserable and scared, but it was all worth it when they got to the top. The sky was so crisp that they could glimpse the Knights of Columbus building in New Haven. They could see all the way to the sound, a faint sliver of Long Island on the horizon.

  Siddharth hoped his father had made it to Atlantic City okay. He was angry that Mohan Lal hadn’t bothered to call but assumed it was Ms. Farber’s fault. She was a freak. She probably wouldn’t let the poor man take a break from banging. All the people who were supposed to take care of him were freaks, but in that moment, it seemed like the biggest one was Arjun. Siddharth was fed up with all his fucking Gandhi talk and his fucking Pakistani girlfriend—the way he complained about America and cars. Everything would be much better if it weren’t for his brother.