Distortion

by Gautam Malkani

  That’s all for today about Oedipus.

  The botched-Botox man taps another drum roll on his desktop. “Now you’re talking, kiddo. Except of course, those stories you were hovering over in the first place were most likely recommended for you by the algorithms. They fed you stories about Oedipal relations because they figured out those were the stories you’d be most likely to click on and stay on according to your data-crunched vulnerabilities and triggers and weaknesses. Laser-guided precision targeting. Pull to refresh. Cleverly designed push notifications to make cellphones more addictive than slot machines. In junk news industry parlance, it was a perfect triple-whammy, playing to your fears, your perversions and all those convenient prejudices against over-baring mothers. So you see, there’s no scenario in which you aren’t being nudged towards Oedipus by algorithmic prophecies.”

  He tells me it’s the exact same shit as people who emit bipolar signals getting nudged towards online casinos. Or people with a mild intolerance getting nudged towards neo-Nazis. Says the only thing that could’ve saved me from Oedipal predictions would’ve been if the likes of Google and Facebook had completely different business models that didn’t involve baiting people’s eyeballs with the cleverest hooks ever constructed in order to generate ad revenues. If they didn’t stick you in some custom-tailorised bubble of self-reinforcing thoughts. Still can’t puzzle out exactly what he’s trying to tell me with all this red-pilling of his – if he’s on some particular specificness about things that gone down between me and Mum. But I’m feeling like maybe now I might actually understand this guy if he ever does decide to just tell me whatever the fuck he’s telling me.

  Stand up from the stool like we all done here, like as if my cursor ain’t still fumbling about in the search box.

  The Botox man scans a look at his single-function wristwatch. Tells me he knows I ducked Ramona’s offer to link up for lunch today – even claims he knows why. “And I know that my knowing this won’t surprise you, Dylan. But I strongly suggest you reconsider. Don’t shit the bed on that front too. Plus you could clearly use a square meal. Some proper slap-up red meat. Stop trying to steel yourself against the day by siphoning your mummy’s iron supplements.”

  “So now you dosing out dietary advice?”

  “Fashion advice. Couple more pounds and your trousers might actually fit you. You ever considered wearing a belt? Or braces? Or, better still, both? I mean, just to be safe.”

  21

  RAMONA’S GOT COMPANY. The girl’s got her back to the entrance so I can’t clock her face. But she’s rocking an afro like a crown of crushed-up rubies. Some signage tagged across her chair – hashtag BFF. Like as if to tell me that this is Ramona’s brand-new oldest best friend. Why the hell is there signage?

  I walk towards their table.

  If she’s a crap friend, this’ll all be safe. But if she’s a good friend, we’re riding straight to Awkward City: legislative capital of the Confederation of Autonomous Awkward States. Cos here’s the thing about Ramona’s BFs: you can change the topic of convo all you like. Can offer to go buy another round. Can leg it to the bar or the bathroom or that counter with the milk and the bogey-blocked sugar pourer. But you can never outrun the words “he’s my sort-of boyfriend”.

  Best-case scenario: when that girl called Jen told Ramona maybe I was moonlighting for MI5 or someshit.

  Or Trish, who’d told her I’m probly just a highly committed commitmentphobe.

  Then there was Beatrice, who told her I obviously had a defective dick.

  And Wai-Liu, who told her maybe I was shamed of some other defect – like midnight bowel movements or post-coital halitosis (apparently that’s actually a thing).

  And then of course there was Gita and Myra and Deidre and all them others who’d told her must be I was cheating on her – as in actual cheating, not just thinking about possible rebound options for when Ramona wises up and dumps me.

  Allow it – just be chill.

  Roll up to their table.

  Apologise for crashing their lunch.

  “It’s long after lunch, Dillon.” Ramona doesn’t ask how come I managed to find her here – in all the pop-up cafés in all of London. And so I don’t ask myself either. “This is Naliah. My new friend.”

  Before filling out all the mandatory nice-to-meet-you fields, I tell Ramona I swear down she told me earlier she was meeting an old friend.

  “Well, a week’s a long time.” Smiling as she says this, though.

  Tables are all wearing, like, wedding gowns or someshit so Naliah’s face has gotta front for her footwear. Sunglasses fronting for her eyes. No make-up, no lip gloss, no nothing, just those ruby-red highlights in her afro burning all the way down to the roots. Why is it that women feel they gotta keep highlighting or dyeing or straightening or just generally self-mutilupgrading? Hug her tighter and tell her again that she don’t need no hair to be prettyful, don’t need no breasts to be prettyful, don’t even need to lose the nasal feeding tube to have a prettyful smile. When Naliah takes off her shades, her contact lenses are green. Ain’t so green that they order you to stare at her, though, they just tell you that they there. The TV’s still on standby. The car alarm activated, i.e. zero distraction as she answers all my stock-standard questions: chemical engineering, Imperial College, tea rather than coffee, Samsung, Camden, purple, her parents are from Angola though they split when she was nine. And all the time that I’m nodding and asking and nodding, I’m basically just trying to sus out if she’s a crap friend or a good friend. Can I really, like, love Ramona for real if I want her to have crap friends who’ll just shoulder-shrug all my sneaky shiftiness? But could I really love her for real if I wanted her to have good friends who’d tell her to chuck me? Naliah’s now asking me her own set of user profile questions so I do my best to bore her. Basic strategic manoeuvre straight outta my Young Carer’s Playbook. It’s all about boundaries. Being boring is less rudeful. Less shitty than bullshitting. Less convoluted and extra than pretending you got a cold when her white blood count is low. So I hit her with the precise distances between Piccadilly Line Tube stops. I hit her with linear regression econometrics. Hit her with how variable datasets affect financial forecasting. She reaches across to check her rejuicing phone – shoes squawking like they on some error alert. So not just flats, but trainers. Probly them dickless hipster plimsolls.

  “Sorry for squeaking,” says Naliah. “I’m wearing trainers – not by choice, just for work. My job requires the wearing of flat shoes.” And then once again with the squawk of the score for a horror film. Scalpel on a hospital whiteboard. Now giving aggro to the table cover as she sits straight again and crosses her legs.

  “Barista, right?” goes Ramona. “I barista’ed last year – totally fucked with my feet. So now I’m just going to pay for uni by selling one of my kidneys.”

  A real, actual barista then pops up right in front of us to clear away the table stains. Naliah can’t tell if Ramona was joking about selling a kidney. Solid indicator of low-level friendship and so my muscles kick back in their sockets or tendons or sofas or whatever.

  “No, I’m not a barista,” says Naliah when the actual barista has gone. And then she locks on me. “I’m a part-time professional foot model. Officially voted the sexiest feet in Europe.”

  My eyes on Ramona to see if this shit is her idea of a practical joke. Ramona just looking like the joke’s on her. Next, Naliah starts busting out some blatantly well-trodden spiel about foot modelling – saying how regular fashion models don’t get hired for close-ups of feet cos of all that strutting their stuff up and down catwalks: “It isn’t just the blisters that count them out. A lot of catwalk models like filing down their toenails, which pretty much rules out modelling sandals or stockings or barefoot shots for verruca treatments. Plus they’re all so lanky, which means larger and skankier feet.” Starts telling us how people are biologically programmed to prefer seeing women’s shoes modelled on small feet – like as if I don’t alrea
dy know this shit. (FYI, it’s cos oestrogen limits the growth of foot bones.) (And also cos pregnant women have bloated feet.) (And cos sick women have swollen, fluid-filled balloon feet.) (And cos our infant minds develop while we crawl at our mum’s and dad’s feet – and our mummy’s feet lead to the milk.)

  “But really it’s about more than just slenderness,” Naliah presses on. “For instance, I also won my Sexiest Feet in Europe Award because of softness, sheen and scent. Plus I’ve been blessed with a perfect toe cascade and a really deep nail bed, which means I’ve got shorter nails that look longer.” She carries on listing her foot modelling credentials like she’s trying to give me a hard-on filled with helium. Fucking laughing gas, more like. “Exfoliating helps with texture but also improves the taste of my toes by counteracting any clammy tanginess … I usually just rub against cold metal table legs to tone and tighten my ankles … It’s good practice for when I model stainless-steel ankle-cuffs because the steel is usually coated in coolant to stop them conducting the heat of the spotlights … ”

  Reroute my stare three tables to our left. Some guy’s holding up a Polaroid foto of the blueberry pie on his plate. Starts telling random strangers why he reckons the taste is “underwhelming”. Another diner joins in by listing various blueberry-bush pesticides that studies have found to be dangerous.

  Naliah drops a throat-clearance cough and so I swipe back to our table, “Thankfully, though, leather ankle-cuffs don’t conduct spotlight heat … And of course steel stiletto heels are generally insulated by plastic … Did you know women are more likely to wear high heels when they’re ovulating? It’s true – even female baboons walk on tiptoes when they’re on heat … ”

  My mama falling over and crying despite me begging her to wear her post-op plimsolls instead. Can’t use crutches if they cut out half your latissimus dorsi.

  “It’s because high heels push forward our centre of gravity,” Naliah explains, “so they alter our hips, chests and pelvic muscles.” Next, she starts going on about her bunion immunity, which apparently means she can model the soles of fishnets without any bumps disturbing the lattice. “All things being equal, though, I prefer modelling shoes rather than stockings – especially those slingbacks with the straps that pull tight on your toe cleavage like the rein of the rear of a thong.”

  This is when I finally step up and ask both of them what the fuckness is going on here. Even stand up for dramatic effect – though I think maybe I mainly do this just to prove to Ramona that I ain’t got a hard-on – not even semi. Another handy manoeuvre straight from my Young Carer’s Playbook.

  Ramona scrunches her nose and then facepalms as if to hold it scrunched. Whispers through her fingers, “I think that maybe … ”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” goes Naliah. “I appreciate Ramona and I have only been friends for a couple of weeks, but all the same, I like to look out for my friends.”

  “Oh, really, is that what you think you’re doing?” goes Ramona.

  “Why’d you go and blurt to your new friend that I’m into feet?” I ask her. “Exactly how is that something to front about?”

  “Well, I didn’t know she was going to stage an intervention.”

  “So tell us, Dillon, did you like the sound of my award-winning feet?”

  “So what if he likes your feet?” goes Ramona. “It’d be unhealthy if he wasn’t attracted to you.”

  “But I’m not attracted to her.”

  “ No bunions, Dillon. No fungal infection.”

  “It’s okay to acknowledge that she’s gorgeous – I’m not asking you if you want to fuck her.”

  “ A lingering Red Leicester aroma but with no sharp aftertaste.”

  “And besides, Dillon, you know how I feel about liars.” After Ramona drops this line about liars, I need a friggin Dyson to gather my shit back together. But then Ramona backs up a bit – tells Naliah that, actually, for all my various headfucks and defectments, at least I’ve always been honest.

  “Wait, what? So it’s okay for him to treat you like this just so long as he’s honest about it?” And then to me: “Can’t you see what you’ve done here?”

  “Look, I don’t know who you’re meant to be or why you’re being so extra about all this. But ain’t anyone ever told you it’s rude to make fun of someone’s personal hang-ups?”

  “Oh FFS, Dillon, this isn’t just about your twisted sexual preferences. It’s about the way you don’t even see Ramona, you only see her feet. You stay safely at the fringes, leaving her dangling around like a rag doll. And believe me, I know what I’m talking about – I watched my mum waste her forties being some slippery shithead’s mistress.”

  Now Ramona steps back in. “Dillon, I think that Naliah’s just trying – I mean Naliah and me – we’re just trying to figure out what this is.”

  “Well, at least now you’re being straight with me.”

  “Oh please,” goes Naliah. “A woman is seriously suffering here and you’re making out as if you’re the victim.”

  I start splintering one of the wooden coffee stirrers.

  This is when I realise that all the chairs in this place have got #BFF tagged across the back. Ditto the menus. Guess it’s the name of the café.

  “You can’t just keep blowing hot and cold on her, Dillon – she isn’t a row of painted toenails. If you want to be free, then go ahead, leave and be free, but don’t just keep loitering in the doorway. Do you have any idea how much that’s been torturing her?”

  I wanna tell Naliah this shit tortures me too, but I can’t without telling the truth about my mother. And then watch Ramona’s face as she clocks all those thousands of little lies I’ve told her. I know full fucking for real it seems like I’m just stringing Ramona along. But truth is I’m also stringing my own ass along.

  Lay my hand on Ramona’s and tell her I’m sorry she felt she needed to sign up Naliah for all this – that she should’ve just talked to me about it.

  The scrunch in Ramona’s nose climbs up her forehead. “Sure. And then watch you run a mile. Well, I’m sorry, Dillon, but I needed to talk to someone who’d actually stay in the room and listen. And it isn’t like I can talk to any of my other friends about us because I know full well what they’d tell me to do. I can’t even talk to the student counselling service because I know they’d tell me to do the same thing.”

  Of course, Ramona knows diddly-fuck about my own covert-op counselling sessions – not the mother–son marriage guidance therapy, not the pre-bereavement bereavement sessions, not the general purpose emotions-are-as-valid-as-facts sessions. But the even bigger false advertising is she doesn’t even know that I need counselling. I try and look away from Ramona’s eyes but without looking like I’m looking away. Without looking like I’m gonna cry or someshit, but also without looking at the floor. I look at her smile-proof mouth – as if clamping roll-ups in place has worn her lips down thinner than blue-grade Rizla. Ramona stopped smoking just before our A levels. Never dramafied it or discussed it. Just quit. And I knew right then that she wouldn’t have no trouble just quitting me on the spot.

  “So what is this, Dillon?” Ramona asks. “To you. What is it to you?”

  Even I’m sitting here waiting for my response when, for some reason, Naliah saves my ass from having to answer. “Look, maybe the real question here isn’t why do you treat Ramona like a sack of shit. Maybe it’s why do you put her on a pedestal, Dillon?”

  I nod – I know where Naliah’s coming from. Thing about being a masculinity asshole is you ain’t gotta be some blatant dickhead. Ain’t even gotta be one of them silent sense-of-entitlement guys who blames women on the quiet for all of his personal fuck-ups and failures. Truth is, many masculinity assholes reckon they adore women – that they worship the ground beneath their feet. I weigh up whether to tell this to Naliah – show her that I been thinking about this. Problem is, I’ll probly just sound like I’m virtue signalling on social media or someshit. That happens to Dhilan a lot. Ev
en though accusing someone of virtue signalling implies that you yourself are somehow above virtue signalling – which is basically virtue signalling, right?

  Turns out Naliah’s got her own angsts. “I hope you appreciate what it takes for me to speak the truth, Dillon. The things that a person risks. For instance, I’ve just risked my friendship with Ramona. I’ve probably risked being labelled an angry ethnic woman or something just to keep me in my place. And I’m risking a lot more besides. But when I heard how much Ramona’s been suffering here, I really wanted to help her.” And then to Ramona: “Sorry for talking about you in the third person.”

  Ramona shrugs her fingers.

  “Okay,” I step up. “So you wanna know why I put her on a pedestal? Or is it you wanna know why I put her feet on a pedestal?”

  “We’ve finished talking about feet,” goes Ramona.

  “Maybe you simply have low self-esteem issues?” Naliah doesn’t let me answer then takes my silence as a denial and an access-all-areas invite to guess again. “You have mother issues? No – a little too clichéd for you? Well then, how about your father?”

  I wanna tell her that I don’t know my father. That I ain’t nothing like my father. That my father ain’t some misogynist womaniser, he’s a lonely, woman-losing loser. But before I can speak, Ramona cuts in. “Naliah, listen, I get what you’re trying to do for me here. And I get why you have to be extra just to shake us out of our zone. And I appreciate it – you’ve been really good to me these past few days. But it isn’t really your place to talk about me like this and it certainly isn’t your place to talk about Dillon’s hang-ups or Dillon’s parents.”

  “But come on, Ramona, you don’t know even know his parents. You said so yourself that you only just met his dad yesterday. Your so-called boyfriend has somehow managed to convince you that meeting his family doesn’t equal natural progression.”