by Teal Swan
Six police officers showed up at the scene. When they pulled up both behind and in front of Kendrik, he panicked. They yelled at him to get down on the floor. But while he was doing it, he reached into his pocket for the business card of his probation officer. Having been called to the scene of a man with a gun, they made the assumption when he reached into his pocket that he was reaching for a gun. That Kendrik was unarmed was a fact that they didn’t discover until after the first officer had unloaded two shots, the second had unloaded six, the third had unloaded five and the fourth had unloaded 12.
Kendrik didn’t trust the police. Policing was the most enduring aspect of the struggle for civil rights. It had always been a mechanism for racial control. Stories of police harassment and violence in the black communities where he grew up were common. The faces of the police officers he feared were faces that belonged to a larger system of inequality; inequality in the justice system, inequality in housing, inequality in employment, inequality in education and inequality in health care. Kendrik trusted his probation officer because, like Kendrik, Officer Kent was black. As a black man as well as a cop, Officer Kent had spent the last 15 years reconciling the warring perspectives within himself. As a black man, he had found himself on the receiving end of both profiling and discrimination more times than he could count. As a father to three black children, he had found himself having to have “the talk” about the reality of being black in America and about how to act in encounters with law enforcement so that they would be sure to leave with their lives.
As a cop, he knew how dangerous the job was. He had seen his colleagues killed on account of not pulling a gun fast enough. He knew that being a cop also came with its own share of unfair scrutiny. When Officer Kent showed up at the scene, he knew that some of the cops that had shot Kendrik that day had shot him out of implicit bias and some had not. One side of that war within him felt the honor of wearing the same uniform as the other brave public servants that served with him. The other side of him couldn’t help but wonder when tragedies like this happened, why so many of the faces of those who were killed looked like his.
Aria’s mood while she waited for Taylor to arrive at the café was dark. It was perfectly matched by the depressing wail of the indie music playing on the overhead speakers. Taylor arrived in his typical style, over half an hour late. He pulled up to the parking spot driving a sunshine-yellow Pontiac Solstice. He was dressed from head to toe in a tight-fitting designer suit with oversized glasses and Gucci sliders. He got out of the car in a Hollywood style that suggested there should have been film cameras about. When he reached down to hug her before sitting down at the table, Aria was engulfed in the attar of a cologne that blurred the lines between masculine and feminine.
“You look completely amazing,” Aria said. Instead of a response, Taylor used his hand to frame his face and strike a pose as if to say, I know, I know, darling.
He got up almost as quickly as he sat down, realizing that Aria hadn’t ordered anything yet. “Hey, you want somethin’?” he asked. Aria shook her head no. Taylor guessed that she had declined on account of having no money, so he winked at her and walked toward the counter to buy her something anyway.
He sat back down with an iced coffee and put an iced caramel macchiato in front of Aria. “Did you land a part or something?” she asked, having no other explanation for Taylor’s sudden financial upgrade.
“I wish. No, Daddy’s just rich,” he said, referring to Dan. The café employee came over to the table, carrying a small plate with a cinnamon roll. When he placed it down in front of Taylor, the two of them looked at each other like two hissing cats. “What the hell was that?” Aria asked as soon as the man had left.
“Oh he’s just sissyphobic. Some gay men find other gay men like me simply objectionable.” He enunciated the words “simply objectionable” loud enough that the man behind the counter could hear.
“So where are you living?” Aria asked.
“Well, you remember I moved in with Dan, right? It was better than I expected. I mean, I guess it had to be ’cause I’m still living there! We’re up in Laurel Canyon,” he said. Aria didn’t know where Laurel Canyon was, but from the look of Taylor’s makeover, she could imagine the affluence of the place.
“Are you still taking those acting classes?” Aria asked.
“No … I don’t know; it just wasn’t really getting me anywhere. I kind of gave up acting for now,” Taylor said. Aria could feel the shame in the cadence of his voice.
“So what are you doing every day then?” she asked.
Taylor laughed once before admitting, “I’ve been helpin’ Dan with his thingy and redecorating mostly. Dan has this awful old movie fetish. I’ve let him keep a room all to himself so he can put all his collector pieces there. That way they won’t be littering up the house … Oh, and I’ve been learnin’ to cook. He’s lucky I haven’t burned the whole goddamn house down yet … Besides that, I’ve just been loungin’ around the house.” Aria chuckled to imagine Taylor in the new life he had stumbled into.
“Where are you livin’ now?” Taylor asked.
Aria pointed in the direction of the mini market. “Just over there,” she said.
“No shit?” Taylor said, turning around to look.
“Actually, I found a guy too!” Aria confessed.
Taylor grinned as a substitute for congratulating her. “Isn’t it obvious now you’re gonna have to tell me about ’im? … What’s his name, what’s he do, is he sexy?” he asked.
Aria told him every last detail, down to revealing the fact that Omkar had been the one leaving the things they had found on the hood of the car. When she had dispensed every detail, Taylor’s expression had gone from cocksure to adoring. Words could not describe how happy he was for her. Still, deep down he envied her.
Taylor had abandoned the path toward his dreams because in many ways, through Dan, he had already manifested them. As dramatic as he was by nature, his pull toward the stage and toward the big screen was really just the desire to “make it big.” He wanted to be significant. He wanted a lifestyle that would take him far away from the poverty and insignificance he had experienced in his youth. He had found both significance and wealth through being with Dan.
Still, his life with Dan was not all gifts and glamor. Taylor was embarrassed to admit to being a sugar baby. People who had money or who’d grown up with it just didn’t understand the idea that people like him came from less than nothing. Without the proper support systems, people like himself were forced to consent to extraneous means of digging themselves off the street.
Taylor was not naive enough to forget that for many gay men, the kind of relationship that Dan and he had usually lasted for only one night. For others, a week or a month at best. Unlike many other sugar daddies, Dan was monogamous and therefore committed to Taylor. But even so, he knew that even if they were together for years, it could end at any moment. He had become the male version of a trophy wife; only he had no marriage license to ensure his security. His significance and lifestyle came with the expectation of keeping himself beautiful at all times. It came with the expectation that he would never resist sex whenever Dan wanted it. It came with the expectation that Taylor would be a slave, at his beck and call. It was a price he was willing to pay.
Before their visit was over, Taylor drove Aria around in the flamboyant car that Dan had bought him. He told her to pick a song and blared it to show off the impressive sound of its speakers. “Don’t be a stranger!” he yelled, when she got out to walk toward the store.
“Don’t worry, you’ll always be my Boo,” she yelled back, waving.
As Taylor drove away, he watched Aria through the rear-view mirror. The envy that he felt for the love that she claimed to have found made him resent the circus of his life. Even though some form of mutual caring had grown out of the life that he and Dan were forming together, it was not love. It was not the love that Aria had found. It was a relationship of mutual use and tra
nsaction.
The love between Omkar and Aria was the inosculation of two trees whose roots had grown separately until they were destined to touch. His and Dan’s, on the other hand, was a crooked rose.
CHAPTER 35
Her periods had been late before. In fact, they had never been regular to begin with. But there was something inside every woman that worried whenever there was reason to believe there might be occasion to worry.
The possibility of being pregnant had been a nagging disquiet in the back of Aria’s mind for the past two weeks. It had grown into enough of a worry that she had considered stealing one of the pregnancy tests at the store. Aria didn’t want Omkar to be involved unless she was absolutely sure. But it didn’t feel right to take anything from the family who she was now becoming more and more a part of every day. So, she set up an appointment and took a bus to a non-profit healthcare center that offered free pregnancy tests.
The insulation of the room that the medical assistant had put her in to wait was fortified enough to make the room feel lifeless. Occasionally, she could hear the voices of doctors and nurses passing by as they discussed the patients who were waiting in other rooms. To distract herself from the isolation, Aria tried to memorize the anatomy of an ear, which was displayed on a medical chart that had been framed as if it were decoration.
The double knock on the door when the doctor finally came back made Aria jump. The doctor started talking before she had even closed the door. “Hi there. The test was negative, so you’re not pregnant. I am a little concerned that you say your periods have always been so irregular, though. Some woman have good success evening out their cycles with oral contraceptives. The clinic can prescribe some for you if you’re interested in trying that out and seeing how it goes?”
“I’ll think about it,” Aria said.
“Well, is there anything else that you need help with today?” the doctor asked.
“No, I’m good,” Aria responded.
“OK then. It was good to meet you today, you have a good rest of your day,” the doctor said, shaking Aria’s hand before exiting the room. Aria followed her out, but went the wrong way, and eventually had to be redirected back through the labyrinth of the office to find the door where she had originally entered.
Instead of taking the bus back home, she went to the public beach where she and Omkar had gone on their first date. She didn’t call Omkar to tell him to meet her there when he was done with school for over an hour. Instead, she watched the waves, trying to make sense of the deluge of her mixed emotions. It made no sense to her why she could feel so much dread at the idea of being pregnant, but when the doctor had given her the good news, it hadn’t felt like good news at all. She chided herself in her head. “What the fuck, Aria … If you’re knocked up, you don’t want to be, but if you’re not, you want to be. What the fuck is that about?” When the doctor had given her the news, it had felt like a loss even though there had never been anything there to lose in the first place … A loss of closeness or belonging, maybe.
Aria felt bad about herself again. The potential of pregnancy had made her realize the extent to which her life wasn’t in order. The life she was living did not even remotely resemble a life that a child should be brought into, and that bothered her now, more than it ever had.
It wasn’t a baby that Aria wanted; she was conscious of that. She had seen so many girls like her, who had been deprived of love growing up, having babies to try to fill the hole within themselves. They imagined that if they had a baby, there would be someone to finally love them unconditionally and be with them and give them a sense of belonging forever. But it was a fantasy. The minute the baby was born, that fantasy would prove false. Somewhere in the physical wear and tear of motherhood, they would realize that motherhood was a one-way street of having to fulfil the baby’s needs even when no part of them wanted to. If these mothers made it past the phase of infancy and managed to enmesh their children into the dysfunctional dance of being there for them instead, it never turned out well. That same child that they looked to for unconditional love and belonging would eventually turn against them, brimming with resentment for being born only to suit their mother’s unmet emotional needs. Aria didn’t want to follow in those predictable footsteps.
The sadness she felt was the sadness of losing the potential of a deeper sense of closeness that she might have had with Omkar. She was just like those young mothers who lacked a sense of love and belonging. A baby felt like a knot that would have been tied between herself and Omkar, fortifying the security of their union. Maybe the guarantee that she would be cherished by him a little longer. Aria was irritated at her own unshakable insecurity when it came to connection. But then again, how could she not be anxious? She wasn’t a girl who was worried about a loss she had never tasted. Loss had been the rule of her life instead of the exception.
There were no children on the beach that day, so instead of watching them, Aria imagined them playing there. She tried to study the bubble of belonging that seemed to exist around a man, a woman and their child. It caused a potent ache to paint itself against the trammel of her chest.
“Hey, what are you looking at?” Omkar said, walking up behind her and kissing her on the cheek from behind. Aria was staring off into the recesses of the ocean, trying to see with her mind what her eyes could not.
“Nothing,” she said, smiling at him as he sat down beside her.
“Why did you come here? Did you miss me?” he jested, mindful of the fact that she had chosen to sit exactly where they had sat during the picnic he had arranged for her on their first date there.
“I don’t know. I just wanted to see the ocean again,” she said.
Omkar could feel the murkiness of her mood, and put his arm around her shoulder, burying his face in the hair that cascaded past the side of her neck. Aria broke the silence by asking, “How would you feel if I got pregnant? I mean, what would you want to do or whatever?”
He sat back in disbelief, his breathing shallow. “Do you think you’re pregnant?” he asked. The entire trajectory of his life hung in the balance of her answer.
“No. I know I’m not pregnant. I just started thinking, since we haven’t exactly been careful about it, you know … What would you think about it if it happened?”
Omkar leaned back on his arms. “What would you want to do about it?” he asked, not wanting to answer first in case his answer was the opposite of hers.
“No, you don’t get to put it back on me. Can you just try to answer?” she asked.
Omkar thought about the fact that he was already struggling to juggle the pressures of school and work and having enough time left over for Aria. He thought about the wrath of his parents, were he to make a “mistake” like that. But even though there were undeniable consequences and even though the timing would not be his first choice, Omkar could not find an inch of himself that felt like those negative factors would outweigh the blessing he would perceive it to be if it actually did happen.
To his surprise, when he considered the question, he realized that it would feel like a consummation of the love that he felt for her. He pulled her to lay her head against his chest. Aria could hear the sound of his heart beating. “Shona, I don’t want to ask you to do anything that you don’t want to do. But how could it not make me happy? A child is a divine spark. It is sacred. If God wanted us to be a soul’s entry into this world, how could I not be happy? I wouldn’t care if it were a girl or a boy. I would want you to have the baby. I could not see it as a mistake because I love you and I know that God likes to use love to create new life.”
Even knowing his heart as well as she did, Omkar’s answer astounded her. She was spinning as a result of it. Omkar coaxed her from her silence. “What would you want to do?”
“I’m not saying that I want it to happen right now or anything, but I wouldn’t want to get an abortion,” she said, looking down at her feet in the sand.
A smile spread across Omkar’s face. He
leaned down and kissed the crown of her head. In the wake of the conversation, they watched the ocean with their minds far away from it. Aria let his surety carry her trust, and with the weight of her trust in his arms, Omkar started to think. By American standards, they were young … too young, perhaps, to consider marriage. But when compared to the prospect of bringing life into the world with her, which was a commitment that even divorce could not undo, marriage no longer seemed far away. It made no sense to Omkar why, if he could consent to having a child with her, he hadn’t proposed to her already. The conversation had been a wake-up call to whatever part of himself had not been diligent about taking precautions when they had made love. A wake-up call to the part of himself that knew how much he loved her and how committed to her he really was.
That night, Omkar sat with Aria until she fell asleep. Sensing that his opportunity was upon him, when he walked upstairs, instead of going to his room, he walked straight into his parents’ bedroom. Jarminder was already asleep. With the side table lamp still on, Neeraj was flipping through the pages of a book on acupressure and locating the corresponding pressure points on himself.
Knowing his son would only interrupt them at night when he had unpleasant news to share, he grumbled in response to Omkar’s intrusion. “Mama, Mama, I need to talk to you,” Omkar said, bulldozing Neeraj’s resistance to Jarminder being woken up. She opened her eyes groggily but was immediately stricken with panic that something must be terribly wrong.
“Mama, I have come to ask you for something. Do you remember what you said when Auntie Chann was going to marry that man last year? You said that if you have to think about whether or not you love someone, that isn’t really love. Mama, I was listening. I don’t have to think about whether I love Aria because I do. I can only hope that in the past little while that she has been living here, you have come to love her too. Mama, you said a long time ago that when I met the girl that I wanted to marry, you had a ring for me to give to her. Mama, I have met the girl I am going to marry. And I am going to ask her to marry me. But I am asking for you and Papa to give me your blessing.”