Rani Patel In Full Effect

by Sonia Patel

  Hopeful, I sit down at the dining room table, my back straight. I press my quivering hands under my thighs. I glance at Mom. As usual, I can’t read her expression. I look at Dad and smile.

  Dad clears his throat and adjusts himself in his chair, like he’s getting ready for a long flight. “Wendy’s going to move in with us. It’s best for everyone,” he announces.

  My mouth is too shocked to curve down. I sit there like a ventriloquist puppet with a painted-on permanent smile.

  “I’ve asked her to move in this weekend,” he continues.

  The reality of what he’s saying strikes me. Like a mallet. That’s when my mouth drops. I contort my face in disbelief.

  “Wh-what?”

  I flash a pleading look at Mom, but she doesn’t notice. She’s sitting with her hands folded, staring at the table.

  “Mom, say something! Come on.” She doesn’t utter one word.

  Panic. Dad’s talking nonsense and Mom’s not doing anything. It’s the opposite of their usual fight. What the heck do I do?

  “It’s the most logical solution for all of us,” Dad continues.

  “How!?”

  I shove my chair back and vault up. I pace. My breath becomes rapid. Instead of a peacemaker, I become a prosecutor. I question the defendant. “Protecting the water of Moloka’i from the Ranch is pointless if you break apart your family. They’re using up the water and destroying the land, but you’re using us and destroying our family. How are you any different from the Ranch?”

  “Don’t question me, Rani. Sit down.”

  He’s never talked to me like this before. Is this how Mom feels when he bosses her around? Does she feel hopeless and worthless when she does whatever he demands, even if she doesn’t agree? I shake my head and the tears start. “You made Mom move to Moloka’i. All she does is work,” I wail. “You broke her, and now you’ve left her.”

  Dad’s eyes are on the table. He lifts his stainless steel pyalo and swirls around the remaining water. He takes a sip then says, “Mom needs me, Rani. I can’t leave her. And I won’t leave Wendy. I love her.” He’s looking directly at me now.

  He’s talking to me like Mom isn’t even here. I take off my glasses and massage my temples with my fingers. Then I bury my head in my hands.

  “What about me, Dad?”

  “You don’t need me anymore.”

  What?

  A whirlwind of images, chronicling my life as Dad’s rani, zoom through my mind. Quarter Pounders at McDonald’s, despite Mom’s pleas to him to raise me vegetarian. Hiking in the Appalachians without Mom. The trip to Oahu the year before he declared he was moving to Moloka’i while Mom stayed behind and worked.

  Even after moving to Moloka’i, it was still him and me. At the store and restaurant. The activist meetings. Hiking and fishing. I think he genuinely wanted the best for me. A better life than he had growing up in Gujarat.

  But Mom paid the price because she was never on his radar.

  Over the years, he gave me all of his many forms of attention—the I love you’s, the countless hours spent, the private conversations with no filters. And like a sponge, I soaked it all up.

  Rani, you’re all I need.

  Rani, it’s just you and me.

  Rani, tell me what to buy Mom so she calms down.

  Rani, Mom’s gooso. It’s because she had a rough childhood. Just stay out of her way.

  Then there were the other private things. An all too familiar shiver creeps down my spine and my body trembles. I think about my slam poem.

  So daughter became child bride…

  I can’t let myself go there. Mom’s here and she doesn’t know about all that. Quickly, I lock those memories away and toss the key.

  Instead, I dredge up other memories—the ones of him praising me. All he had to do was shower me with his affection and attention and I’d let him do anything to me. And I’d do anything for him—anything to ensure I’d keep getting my fix.

  So child bride became Dad’s attention junkie…

  I’d ask him about his day. Make him feel better if he had a bad one. I’d listen. Obey. Never talk back. Straight A’s—always. Chores and work at the store and restaurant—above and beyond. On-call expert couples’ counselor. And I didn’t need a degree. I had lots of experience.

  Sometimes I’d even forget I had opinions of my own. In my mind, he could do no wrong. He knew everything. If I stayed close to him, I’d feel good and everything would work out. If I listened to him, I’d succeed in life.

  And I didn’t mind the isolation. It meant he wanted to be with me the most. If my friendships went beyond casual, Dad interfered. This one time, after we first moved to Moloka’i and still lived in Maunaloa, he accused two of my new friends of letting all the Ranch cows into our yard. There was cow shit everywhere and Dad was furious. Thinking about it now, there’s no way two kids could have done that. How could he not know that? Guess it was a good excuse to cut me off from them. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. A life outside of him seemed unnecessary.

  It was all about him. I got good at all about him. An authority on the subject, in fact.

  And the ultimate reward was when he said, “I love you, Rani. What would I do without you?” His approval became my life-sustaining force.

  I’ve looked up to him for so long, I don’t know where else to look.

  And now he’s saying I don’t need him.

  “It’s not fair, Dad! I’m the one you really love. Not Wendy! What about me? Don’t you love me?”

  “I do, but I’m committed to Wendy now.”

  I’m speechless. My head hurts. I rest my forehead on the table. No one speaks. Minutes pass. Dad tries a new tactic. Running his fingers over his stubbly beard, he whispers, “Rani betta, you have to help me.”

  I lift my head up. “How could you even ask Mom and me to live with Wendy?”

  “Don’t you want us all to stay together?”

  “Of course I want us to stay together.” I draw an imaginary circle with my finger encompassing the three of us. “But not with Wendy.”

  “I’m not leaving Wendy, Rani. You’ve always helped Mom and me fix things. You have to help us all stay together.”

  I almost fall for it. Then I take a look at Mom. Even though she hasn’t moved, tears streak her cheeks. There are no words of selfharm. Only silent sorrow.

  “I’m not going to fix things this time!”

  Dad opens his mouth to retort.

  “Bhus. Chuup. Both of you. That’s enough,” Mom says.

  Flabbergasted, I press my lips together. My tears stop.

  “Pradip, you need to leave,” she says, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hands. “You and Wendy aren’t welcome here.”

  This is the first time I’ve ever heard Mom stand up to Dad. I let the significance of it wrap itself around me like a pashmina shawl.

  No headbanging. No knives. No “I want to die.”

  “Meera, I won’t leave you. You need me.”

  “I don’t want you in my life anymore. I’ll hire an attorney to handle our divorce and divide everything. Don’t come back here or to the store or restaurant.”

  Dad’s eyes and mouth are stuck wide open. He looks like one of those busts of dead old guys you see in museums.

  “If you try anything funny, I’ll call the police. I’m not following you anymore.”

  She grips the armrests of the chair and labors to push herself up. She limps over to Dad. I can tell her ankle is still bothering her. My eyes well up again.

  “Get out now, Pradip.”

  RAP SAVED MY LIFE YO!

  “Get out now, Pradip.”

  Mom’s words echo in my ears. Dad’s won all the battles, but she just won the war. I’m shell shocked. And restless. I walk in circles around my room like I’m a dog chasing its tail. The three-foot tower of CDs in the corner beckons me, urging me to find some lyrical healing. I run my finger on the CD spines, making my way down the stack. My eyes fix on
LL Cool J’s Mama Said Knock You Out.

  I pull it out quick so none of the other CDs shift. I drop the disc into my boombox and skip to its namesake track. I want to blast it, but it’s late and Mom’s probably sleeping. So I settle on volume five. I hurl myself onto the bed and glue my eyes to the ceiling. I imagine a sold-out arena. I’m announcing on stage. Then Mom appears amidst the bright flashing lights and starts full on rapping. She delivers each of LL’s lines with precision. Her thick Gujju accent adds to the performance. She’s working the crowd in her stylish hip hop outfit. Baggy jeans. Oversized black hoodie with a huge Indian flag on the back. A long 24K gold chain with a four-inch diameter, diamond-studded, Om pendant. Black and gold Adidas high tops.

  I smile, feeling less sad and worried. Every time I listen to this hard-hitting LL track, it’s like I’ve won a boxing match without throwing a punch. It’s the ultimate stress relief. There’s something timeless about it. I can picture myself listening to it even when I’m forty, when I’ve had a bad day at work, when I want to kick my boss where the sun don’t shine, but I can’t because I don’t want to lose my job or get charged with assault in the third degree, even though it’s only a misdemeanor. So I blare Mama Said Knock You Out instead. Miraculously, everything’s all G.

  I’m sure LL knows he’s influenced people from all walks of life. But does he know that his dynamic rap has provided much-needed solace to a first generation Indian teen girl? If I ever met him, I’d probably give him a chin-up and say, “S’up LL.” Naw. Let’s be real. I’d give him a big bear hug and say, “Thank you. Thank you for Mama Said Knock You Out. It’s cheaper than therapy, man.”

  My thoughts drift back to Mom and what else she said to Dad.

  I’m not following you anymore.

  Mighty words for a woman who followed him for seventeen years. From Kenya to Gujarat, where they met for the first time after being matched by their parents. Then around a Hindu marriage fire in Gujarat, where Mom did the Saat Phere and followed Dad around the holy fire witness Agni. I’ve seen the photos. With each round, they recited vows to each other. After the seventh vow and circle, they became man and wife. I’ve been to a few Hindu weddings. The vows enthralled me—so simple, practical, and beautiful, spelling out married life between two loving partners. Through the years, though, Dad hasn’t been a loving partner and he sure hasn’t kept any of the vows. Trust Mom with her decisions about the household? No. Consult with her about their source of income? Nope. Seek her and only her to experience all the seasons of their life? Heck no!

  I take off my glasses and flip over on the bed. I bury my face in the pillow. It becomes a soft sponge for my wet eyes.

  Mom kept following him. To New York. To Connecticut. Finally to Moloka’i. How could she possibly know that Dad would say the words but do the opposite?

  My grandparents followed the traditional Gujarati Patel’s Chha Gaam—Six Village—marriage arrangement system. In this system, you can only marry someone from one of the six villages (actually sizable towns) that isn’t your home village. I’m no geneticist, but talk about limiting the gene pool.

  Yuck.

  I think about my grandparents. Bet they got together one day and said to each other, “Hey! Let’s get Pradip and Meera married even though they don’t know anything about each other!” Easy peasy. No discussion like, “Well, maybe they should get to know each other first,” or “Maybe because Pradip is self-centered and Meera can’t speak up for herself, we should think about this more carefully.” A cruel joke. A game of dice for bored parents.

  I jerk up on the bed and shake my head. I roll off my bed. I want to to write some rhymes. Time to use the adrenaline pumping in my body and the strange mix of sadness and relief to create a rap masterpiece. I plop down on the thick cushion of my desk chair, open my frayed notebook and slip on my glasses. Then I see the large envelope Pono gave me the other day. It’s laying flat on my desk. I look back at my notebook, but it’s like the envelope uses a tractor beam on my eyes. I grab the envelope and tear it open. Pono said it was receipts, but inside there’s only one sheet of paper.

  MC SUTRA

  BE PREPARED TO PERFORM ONE ORIGINAL RAP

  AT AN AUDITION THIS SATURDAY.

  IF THE CONTENT, FLOW, AND DELIVERY

  OF YOUR RAP IS DEEMED WORTHY,

  YOU WILL BE INVITED TO BECOME A PERFORMING MEMBER

  OF 4EVA FLOWIN’, AN UNDERGROUND CREW ON MOLOKA’I DEDICATED

  TO THE INNOVATION AND PERPETUATION OF HIP HOP.

  MEET THE PROFESSOR

  7:15 P.M. SATURDAY

  HO’OLEHUA POST OFFICE

  BURN AFTER READING!

  Underground crew dedicated to hip hop?

  I take off my glasses, wipe the lenses with my shirt, and slide them back on. I read it again. Yep, underground crew dedicated to hip hop. On Moloka’i? Is Pono messing with me? He doesn’t even know I rap. Only Mark knows about MC Sutra. Is Mark pranking me? Do Mark and Pono know each other? This has got to be a joke.

  Not funny.

  Rap’s no joke to me.

  It’s most definitely helped me cope with my family conflicts. I fold the invitation in half lengthwise then crease the top right corner to the center pleat. Tonight, LL’s rap got me through my family’s final rupture. But it goes back further. I think about how way way back it goes for me as I fold the invitation into a paper plane.

  It started when I was little. The fights were happening all the time. With warning. Without warning. Terrible intense fights. So intense there was usually a threat of Mom getting hurt.

  The memories are flying around my brain like a hundred paper planes, one in particular.

  I’m seven years old, standing at the top of the stairs. There’s light in the kitchen and a terrifying thumping. My mom is banging her head full force against the hard wall, screaming, “I want to die” over and over again. My dad is slumped on a nearby chair, staring at the floor, doing nothing, saying nothing. I run and squeeze my way in between Mom and the wall. “No, Mommy, no! Stop! I love you! Do something, Dad, come on!” My mom wails, then dives forward with her arms and torso stretched out in front of her. Like she’s in child’s pose.

  My dad doesn’t move. I grab his hands and pull him out of the chair with all my might and push him over toward Mom. He stands staring at her, arms limp at his side, head turned away. I tug at Dad’s hand and try to pull him down toward Mom, try to force him to hold her hand. “Say sorry to her, Dad, come on.”

  Dad drops Mom’s hand and grabs both of mine. He fixes his eyes on me and says, “Rani betta, thu mari chokri chu, mari princess.”

  I flick away a tear right before it reaches my jawline. The paper plane invitation in my hand seems to clamor for takeoff. I launch it across my room and watch as it glides a couple of feet before diving onto the carpet.

  My brain is fast-forwarding to every fight that ever happened so it can get to the most recent one. Ten years of saving Mom from hurting herself. Ten years of her ignoring me. Ten years of being the focus of Dad’s attentions. Ten years of being their peacemaker. For what? In the end I couldn’t save their marriage or our family. He’s with another woman now. They might as well have gotten a divorce back in the beginning.

  Then my brain rewinds to a particularly rough fight my parents had in our Connecticut house when I was eleven. That’s when rap claimed its position as my savior. It went down like this. Mom held the tip of an eight-inch chef’s knife to her chest, screaming, “Mhare mari jawuu chhe.” Torment covered her face and tears flowed like the Ganges during monsoon. As expected Dad sat at the kitchen table doing nothing. I pulled the knife away from Mom. Settled her down. Told Dad what to say to her. And brokered a peace treaty between them. Then I locked myself in my room, emotionally exhausted. I cranked up the radio so they wouldn’t hear me sobbing.

  Run DMC’s It’s Like That was playing. I’d never heard it before. I couldn’t stop my head from moving to the beat. And Run DMC’s flow somehow blocked the flow of my t
ears.

  That was it. I’d found something that made me feel better when Dad wasn’t giving me his undivided attention. Feel better after saving Mom’s life. Feel better when I was lonely.

  Rap saved my life yo.

  And it’s been saving me ever since. A year ago I put my own pen to the pad. Writing rhymes to lift myself up. To give myself a road map to life. To swagger and display courage, in hopes that one day I’ll truly feel that level of confidence in myself.

  I retrieve the paper plane and flatten it. I scan the invitation’s words again and scowl. No one talks about rap on Moloka’i. It doesn’t add up. On this island it’s all about reggae and Jawaiian. That’s what’s everywhere. Oozing out of trucks, cars, and houses. Kids on the beach playing ukulele and singing it. It blends into the culture and adds a bit of defiance to traditional Hawaiian music. A subtle non-Western rhythmic form of resistance woven into daily life.

  I don’t know what to make of this 4eva Flowin’. But I know what I have to do.

  Invitation in hand, I walk to the kitchen. The lights are all out. The only sound, the steady low hum of the fridge. I flip on the light switch and rummage through the drawers looking for the disposable lighter. I cram it into my pocket. I open the sliding door to the deck and step out, treading down the stairs to the beach. The Pacific laps at the south shore. I sit on a random tree stump, which the ocean sometimes delivers from some other shore. Alone in the darkness, my eyes adjust. I feel calm and secure. Because I know that rap’s there for me. That it’ll save me whenever I need it. And that no one’s going to mess with that.

  Belie dat.

  I slip the invitation under my thigh so the trades won’t carry it off. With my thumb, I turn the spark wheel and press down on the fork of the lighter. It catches on the first roll. The flame’s a bright orange in the black night. A momentary lull in the winds protects the flame so my free hand doesn’t have to. For a second, I watch the flame toss itself around. I pull out the invitation and touch the flickering light to the paper. Quickly the white disappears, swallowed by a glowing yellow mouth with dark brown and sizzling orange lips. Pieces of char fall to the sand. I stand up and take a few steps to the water’s edge. As the flames reach the corner of the paper, I drop the burning remnant into the water.