No Country: A Novel

by Kalyan Ray

  She also has other pictures on the lace doily in front of her oval mirror, next to her combs. Mom had lovely long hair. Beside the combs her parents stare, unblinking, black-and-white and long dead, from inside their shiny silver frames: Grandpa and Grandma Donovan. Their permanent address was Mount Hope Cemetery. My sister Sandy’s baby picture and mine are also on that doily. My dad, an orphan, had no pictures, none.

  Mom had a pendant locket strung on a thick gold chain she had inherited from her father, together with our house at 166 Haddon Place. After she wore the necklace on special occasions, like Thanksgiving, she would let me carefully open the minute clasp on the pendant. Inside, on either side, were engraved silhouettes of her grandfather and grandmother Donaldson.

  She once said that this was the most precious thing she owned.

  • • •

  “WHAT A NICE accent you have, Mrs. Swint!” Mrs. Herbert, my first-grade teacher, said during the meeting, and Mom blushed. Dad hadn’t come. My mom was pretty, always surprised when anyone said something nice to her. “Is it English?” I liked Mrs. Herbert although her teeth looked large when she sang.

  “Yes,” said Mom, “yes it is. My parents came here when I was eleven.”

  “Do you miss England?”

  “Miss it? I miss Liverpool. We lived in Dingle, next door to my cousins. I miss them.”

  “Do you visit?”

  Mom shook her head. “Dad couldn’t leave his business. Donaldson’s Garage.”

  “Oh, isn’t that a coincidence. My dad always got his car fixed there, all the oil changes and stuff. It’s such a small world.” My mom and my teacher smiled together. I smiled with them.

  “Is your dad still running it?”

  “It’s my dad’s now,” I told Mrs. Herbert.

  Mom had stopped smiling. “I’ve got to go start supper,” she said. “Archie likes it on time. Oh, come along, Billy, hurry up!”

  “My grandpa died,” I confided to Mrs. Herbert, but she wasn’t listening, staring at my mom hauling me along, her handbag open.

  • • •

  I LOVED MY school and my crayons, and Mrs. Melanie Herbert, who said that my drawings and my singing were her joy. I think I love the name Melanie. It’s like melody. And Herbert is sort of like sherbet, which I like, tingly and lemony on my tongue.

  But then, one day, the letters arrived: twenty-six of them!

  As long as I spoke words, or thought about them, they were wonderful. Then came the twenty-six letters. They were in every word, Mrs. Herbert said. They looked like hooks and locks, and twisty threads. S was a serpent sometimes turning into g just to spite me. Then p, b and d; T and J; m and w squirm about, pretending to be each other, all of them vicious. The pencil began to hurt my hand, because I was trying to remember those nasty shapes, holding it so tight that my fingers were red and aching. Sometimes I shut my eyes to squeeze all the letters out of my head. But when I opened them, they wriggled on the page.

  I really hoped that letters would soon be forgotten, just another part of school we’d leave behind on our way to all the fun things, like drawing, singing, learning to name trees and flowers.

  But soon EVERYTHING that we were doing in school had to do with reading and—worse—writing. Those twenty-six letters were driving me into a small corner where I could not breathe.

  One day Mrs. Melody Sherbet herself picked up my sheet of paper, looked disgustedly at me, and tore it in four pieces. “Lazy,” she hissed. I was sure everyone heard: my sister in her classroom, Mommy at home, and particularly Dad, in the garage. Mrs. Herbert slapped a fresh sheet of paper on my desk, held my fist—with its enemy pencil—and said, “Don’t dawdle, Billy Swint! Write properly now.” She squeezed her fingers over my pencil-hand. The twenty-six little demons were going to trick me, I knew. Their shapes kept jumping up and down. Why couldn’t nice Mrs. Melody Sherbet see what was wrong? I dipped my head and bit her thumb. I hadn’t known I’d do that.

  She cried out in surprise. Then, snatching back her hand, she pushed me away. My head twisted and hurt, and I could see her large teeth now, smeared red with lipstick, her nostrils hovering over me, one a black O, and the other a D with two hairs sticking out of it, like bits of black twine. She was ugly.

  “Shit piss cock booger crap fuckfuckfuck,” I shouted all the bad words I knew, trying to clear my head, shivering, clutching my pencil and twisting it about—until it broke by itself. I was squirming to get away, and hit her shin accidentally, but she didn’t believe it.

  The principal sent me home.

  • • •

  DAD PULLED OFF my belt, holding it by the buckle. The first sharp whack across my chest set a red world dancing before me. My pants, without the belt, slid down. I dribbled pee through my undies on the carpet, but my father was poised like a pitcher, red birthmark bouncing up and down with his hard head. The second swish missed and left a mark on the table. Whick-whack. The sixth caught me across my left arm, which I had raised. My mouth was open and I heard screaming somewhere. Air rushed out of me. I am scabby stupid slime dimwit cretin Billy Swint. I am scum.

  I am hurting somewhere—where? The nineteenth swish scrapes me above my eyes, and I feel a small part of my left eyelid peel off. The red is everywhere, but I have no more pee to dribble down. I see my dad stand over me, paper-cutting knife in his hand.

  “I’ll cut off yer pecker now,” he announced. I was quivering, my palms over my penis, sheltering my small pods underneath. Mom appeared suddenly and threw herself on him, clinging to his chest, his belly, giving me a shove toward the door, beyond which I stumbled and fell. Her dress was open all down the front.

  “Oh love, ooh, love, oooh, love.” I heard her struggling. At the doorway, I lay crumpled, but couldn’t turn away from this fascinating battle. Was my mother getting revenge for my hurt? A hot breath filled my chest. I heard my father groaning. Was he hurt? She shoved her chest into his choking face, which broke free, and then was smothered by the white globe with its jiggling pink target. His bristling moustache disappeared beneath it.

  “Get outta here, shoo,” she hissed to me. But I could not stir. She straddled him, arching back, suddenly slumping over him. Another groan from him. She must have really hurt him. Suddenly his face appeared from under her. With the free hand, he flung my belt at me. The buckle missed my eye, but grazed my cheek.

  “Git, yasumuvabitch,” he spat in agony. My penis was intact, but unaccountably tense. I slid out quickly, slamming the door shut, but still could not drag myself away. Lying there, eyeing the chink at the bottom of the door, I could see only a part of his palm. They fought while I stood covered with smelly sweat. Could it be mine?

  “Oh, oooh, oh,” Mom cried out, while he grunted in pain. Yes, hurt him, hurt him, kill him killhim killhimkillhim, I urged Mom on. Suddenly, I heard my mother cry out. Was it some deep wound inflicted inside her? I could hear her labored breath, and then him groaning and choking, slower and slower now. In the silence, my heart thudded on.

  Then I heard something. He must have revived. He was trying to hurt her again. “Oooh. IS that you? Love?” she cried out, somehow delighted, as if he has shown her some magic trick. What do those words mean?

  I wished I had a long knife to cancel and cut off the pictures in my head slash-SLASH-slash. I would hack them away yesyesyesyes and run. I wanted to cancel his face, her face too, for sounding pleased. She is supposed to be hurting him. But what strange game is this? I stood up uncertainly, my body smarting all over. I needed to open that door and see. I put my palm against it, but I was pulled away. There stood my sister, Sandy, grinning slyly.

  “Peeking, you shit? You’re a dirty little prick, Billy, aren’t you?” she smirked.

  As I turned to the top of the stairs, I saw the top of her head, bent, attentive, straining to listen to the last rocking groan of my parents’ fight. I was dizzy and vomity. In the bathroom mirror, I saw red welts all over me, like birthmarks. I spat at myself in the mirror.

  • �
�� •

  I HAD TO go back to school. Cretin stooopid halfwit dumbass conehead. I understand these words, simple facts of everyday life. I scraped along, passed reluctantly, from grade to grade, like a lump of shit through the system.

  During one meeting with my parents, my seventh-grade homeroom teacher called me “severely challenged.” I sat up in surprise. This was Mr. Wofford, his wattled neck rising above his strangling tie, a few hairs floating out of his ears like probing antennae of carefully nurtured insects.

  Severely Challenged! I imagined horses with muscles moving like cables under sweaty hides, the gleaming knights atop them, all shiny and metallic, rearing in frenzy, holding lances tipped with deadly metal. They thundered toward each other. From the melee and dust, I am the only one rising up, victorious in the last joust—Sir Severely Challenged! Battered but victorious.

  I looked at Old Woffo. His tongue lolled pinkly, and wobbled about in his loose mouth. Bubbles appeared at both corners of his mouth, turning into a private ointment on each yellow end of his lips. His words were always moist with spit. “Severely Challenged,” he burbled above me.

  “Dumb as dirt, you mean?” snorted my dad. “Oh, love,” Mom protested nervously. She was clutching and unclutching her handbag.

  “Eh . . . ibegyerpardon?” stumbled Woffo, tripped by the interruption.

  “Stoopid,” offered my dad, teeth bared, the kind of smile he wears when he pulls off the belt from around my pants and flails at me, while I, eyes watering, nose running, hands clutching falling pants, stumble about, sorry ass sticking out, severely challenged, and my mother comes in bucking and snorting, joining the play of rescuing me. I wondered if it was a ritual he had invented for Mom—and I the accessory before the fact.

  • • •

  YEAH, I WAS dropping the occasional grade, but I had acquired some important skills like smoking pot to calm my nerves. By the time they pushed me up to tenth grade, I was older and richer than anybody else in school; I had figured out how to sell the shit rather than just buy it. I could tell the different currency notes—Jacksons, Franklins, et cetera—by instinct. They paid me, hastily, surreptitiously, the notes rolled up, scrunchy tight: I put them in my pocket. I just knew if they’d paid me enough. Shit, I was severely challenged, but my arithmetic of touch was perfection itself.

  I also discovered that if someone rattled off a bunch of numbers, I could total them just like that. I can add, multiply, divide, like 9764852 divided by 1597648 is 6.1120171—see—correct to the seventh decimal, all in less than a second. Don’t ask me how I do this. I just can. It ain’t worth much anyway. Anyone with a five-buck calculator can do exactly the same shit. But it’s the same kind of knowing that tells me what to bend and coax when fixing an engine, or makes the wood yield itself to my hands. It’s a rhythm, man—a rhythm, that’s all.

  I can’t seem to make it past the eleventh grade, although I’m amazed I’ve come this far. But I have no illusions. I am scrawny, sure, but I have grown my carapace. I dye my hair jet-black. I wear stomping boots. I can light my cigarettes in a rainstorm. I was the first in our school to accept Marley as my personal savior. I just understood why Peter Townshend would need to smash his guitar. Yeah, man, for sure everyone loved the Beatles. But here, upstate, the kids are still listening to Belafonte and his tired bananas, for fuck’s sake, while I had discovered the Ramones.

  Yeah, a certain kind of female digs me, begging for smokes and my ant-egg pills. I was sucked off long before the jocks got beyond flicking towels at each other’s arse. I wear my black leather jacket, my tribal patches. My tribe of the lost valley, the church of the pissed night, sailors of the drowned boat. Oooh, Billy, she whispers in my ear, you’re cool. Yeah, I know the routine. I give her what she wants. She is usually inert by the time I enter.

  See, I have friends—sure—lots of them. I don’t have to tell lame jokes. Any girl who wants the shit knows to come over to Billy the Kid. The ones with hollow breath, blue nostrils, begging mouths. They are broke, need grass or more, always telling me they are my best friends—luv ya to death Billy, my billabong, my main man! They sidle over, mumbling, numb minds, and in their own ways, severely challenged, in manners I recognize well. I dispense my little ant-egg pills, spread a little joy, dude. My kindred. They smell bad—of good intentions, old vomit, self-pity, fake affection, and crap. I smell too, of contempt, anger, and the knowledge that I am what Dad calls me: Illiterate Dogshit. How could I—and the rest of the world—possibly smell otherwise? Yeah, you tell me.

  Sure, I could leave high school any day I want to, but I don’t. I have nothing better to do, and after all, this is where my clientele is, where the babes are, my corridors of power and commerce. But my best friends are Jack Daniels and Tanqueray, the djinn.

  When Jack or the djinn lurch me about, I hide where I can—under cemetery trees, behind the high school parking lot, against the metal bins of the PAL League—but mainly in the tiny loft built into the back of our garage at 166 Haddon Lane. This is where I hid my treasures ever since I could walk. Only our cat Russ comes and joins me there sometimes, nocturnal and golden, sharing my pulsating darkness, silently watchful through yellow slit eyes. Oh yeah, I talk to him. Russie, Russie, burning bright, as I bungle through the night; but he is a gentleman cat who disapproves of my cigarette smoke.

  Here long ago I had stashed away Dad’s kidney stones which he brought back from the hospital—a trophy I stole—the only time he was ever sick. I want to crush them to bits some day, to celebrate something. I don’t know what, not yet.

  • • •

  AT THE END of the summer, on a sweaty day in August, Sandy got married. I threw up on the hood of the rented limousine that whisked Gus and Sandy off to the airport for their honeymoon in Myrtle Beach, after which they were relocating to Scranton, Pennsylvania. Just think of the name: Scrraant-tton. Oh yeah, like a broken engine.

  I had flunked—so, eleventh grade again—and at the beginning of term, I went and sat down on the only empty seat next to some girl. Hair in two shiny pigtails, dark eyes, skin like a Hershey bar.

  “Billy,” I said to her, wondering where she was from. I had never noticed her before. It seemed unlikely she would become a customer. But hey, you never can tell.

  “What?” she whispered back.

  “Billy Swint,” I said.

  “Devi,” she said.

  “Hey, Debbie,” I said, rolling the word out like a bag of wet laundry.

  “No,” she said, looking at me with eyes black as dominos. She reminded me of calm water, despite myself.

  “What?” I said, disarmed by her smile.

  “Devi,” she said, “not Debbie.”

  “Davey?” I teased her.

  “It’s Devika,” she said firmly, “Devi, for short.” Her breath smelt lovely, spicy, a cool unfamiliar aroma. I inhaled the fragrance. She looked directly at me, and without saying anything reached into her school bag and handed me a small beige pod, seams on its skin with a tinge of green. I split its skin open and found three rows of shiny black seeds.

  “Never seen anything like this,” I said. Never met anyone like her either, I thought.

  “Chew it,” she said. I put it in my mouth, skin and all, letting it roll on my tongue, then bit down. The tiny pods burst with a lovely smell which filled my mouth.

  “Cool,” I agreed. Devi smiled back at me. I was grinning like an idiot. “I’ll give you some free grass.”

  “No, thank you,” she said, “I don’t . . .” She shook her head. The pigtails moved from side to side. “It’s good stuff. Free,” I insisted, “really”—my $10 twist.

  Just then Mr. Bottgriend appeared out of nowhere and grabbed me by the hand and began calling loudly for Miss Lonnie-Marge McBaggott, our assistant principal. She had creased cheeks, folded like saggy balloons on either side of her narrow nose, and pink nostrils like slits in ham. Her open mouth and pointy tongue made a perfect Q of surprise.

  “Billy Swint!” she wheezed whe
n she saw what was in my palm. Griendy’s grip was a moist octopus.

  “Mr. Bottgriend gave it to me,” I said smoothly.

  “What!” Miss McBaggott almost collapsed under the weight of my confession. She raised her hands up to her limp hair in despair. “Donnie, sweetie, you promised,” she half-hissed, half-croaked in reproach, looking at Griendy’s ample face. I see him looming over me, a large pudding with nostrils.

  “Bobo darling, you believe this turd?” he snorted.

  “Ask Devi,” I said coolly.

  “Debbie?” Griendy asks.

  “Devi,” I corrected him.

  “What?” he said, thrown out of stride. In that moment of his inattention, I snatched my hand away and threw the maryjane out the window, where it would fall on the walkway one floor below. I was home safe. I knew that a good Billy Swint puffie had no shelf life at all—they get picked up instantly.

  I was told to go down to the office, where a huge fracas ensued over my fate. Teachers milled about, and everybody—including Sammy Budds, the custodian, who was one of my business rivals—joined in. While they were all raging in there, I lolled on the chair outside. Devi walked in.

  “They’ll kick you out, Billy Swint,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said, and then added, “Devika.”

  “That’s perfect,” she said, “that’s exactly how to say it. Devika Rathnam Mitra,” she said to me: Black eyes, dimple on left brown cheek, pigtails, sweet breath.

  “That’s the name of the pod?” I teased her.

  “No, silly—the pod is cardamom.” She smiled, gave me three more, and left.

  I remembered it for years: Devika Rathnam Mitra. I had actually made a friend, although it was only for a day, my last day at school. So, school was over. I was relieved, actually. This was all the prom I’d get.