by Joey Goebel
It’s just so hard for unusual people like us to find anyone. I reckon that’s one of the reasons why I finally got so I’d just take anybody, around the time I turned seventy-three.
We hear someone yell “faggot,” and Ray comes scurrying back to us.
“No luck?” I ask.
“No. I was mistaked. I hate this. But at least I was able to block the punches he gave me.”
“Cheer up, Ray Fuquay,” says Luster. “You want to go for a dip? I know how that makes you feel well.”
“Okay!”
Luster can’t even swim, but he knows Ray doesn’t like to get in the pool by himself. Luster can be a real good guy if he likes you, just like he can be a mean ol’ sonbitch if he doesn’t. He’s got so much to offer people, if they’d just give him a chance, and if he’d just give them a chance. But it’s pretty rare that both sides are willing.
As I’m proceeding to teach Ember some Dead Kennedys, Ray and Luster climb on up out of the pool. We’re right in the middle of “Stealing People’s Mail” when I hear Aurora gasp. I look up to see that Luster’s shorts have fallen down.
In the station wagon on the way home, Luster won’t speak to any of us.
“Luster, don’t feel badly,” says Ray. “You cheered me up majorly. You made me feel much more mannish about my manhood today.”
“Shut up, gay-wad,” replies Luster.
“Luster, I’ve known about your tiny wang for a couple of years,” I say. “What’s the big deal? I haven’t treated you any differently, have I?”
He doesn’t answer me, but I know him well enough to know how to get through to him.
“Luster, I’m surprised you don’t see the poetry in this.”
“What do you mean, woman?” he asks.
“Why, you’re such an original, it’s in your bones. You were born not to be like all those typicals.”
At this, he smiles and laughs that great big wild laugh, forgetting his worry. I have to admit, I would’ve made a great mother. It is a shame I never could find a decent man in this world that liked me back.
V. Mecca Lecca High
Ray
As it goes so oftenly, my wife is cooking the kitchen when I get to my apartment after the work. She wears bunned-up hair, an apron, and makes the house smell foreign.
“Hey, honey. How was the work today?” asks she.
“Eh, shitty as usual.”
Milkah, Aymon, and I sit down for the dinner. Every night we try to do this. Tonight I notice Aymon’s strange clothings for the 1th time, I think. He wears a baseball jersey, but not to baseball in. He wears gold necklaces and backward baseball cap. He reminds me of the dressings of Luster’s brothers.
My son is funky. I feel more normal now. If only my wife could loosen up and wear sweatpants once in a lifetime.
The utensils scrape and chink the plates, and that is all we have. I just must say. Something.
“So, Aymon, I heard you not in coming home last night at all. What time did you get in?”
“’Bout six a.m.”
“What were you doing out so late?” Or should I say it “early”?
“I don’t know.”
I try so hard to father him, but he’s never home any more. No blame on him for not wanting to be here. His mother and I constantly yell words. Mean ones. That’s why I’ve been out with friends so much. Needing to get away from this place. At least I always get home way before the bedtime. But my son is only 16 and should not be out that late (or early), and I want to do some fathering here.
“Were you sleeping with girls?”
“Come on, Dad.”
“What were you doing? Can’t you tell me?!”
My wife suddenly yells words in Arabic, and I don’t want to hear it.
“No! Do not revert to the old language!” I command. “We agreed that in the new home, we would speak new home’s language. Now, answer it, Aymon. What were you doing out until six a.m.?”
“I guess I was practicin rappin.”
“What do you mean, ‘rappin’?” voices Milkah.
“You know. Rappin’. Like: Thundercat, Thundercat, Thundercat, whoa. Kitty litter, Lion-O. Mecca lecca hi, mecca tiny ho. Futon, crouton, I don’t know. By the power of Grayskunk he, climbed into the shit with me.”
Oh my ass. I hear this rhythmic talking coming from my only child’s lips, and I see the wife has a terrified look on her face. Just like mine. For once, my wife and I have on the same pagedness.
“Listen to him!” cries Milkah. “Look at him! Look at what this country has done to him—to us! Are you happy, Raykeem?!”
“Quiet!” I order. “Please, Aymon…who taught you how to do this stuff?”
“I learned it from my friends at school. We started our own rap group. We’re called ‘Mothah May I.’”
My wife covers her face. I guess alone I must do the dealing with this.
“Son, I’m glad you found a place for music in your heart and life. I play band, too. But judging by what I just heard you did, I must now ask you something…I always hoped this day would never come. Son…have you been smoking marijuana cigarettes?”
Milkah uncovers her face. We stare at our son. Afraid of the answer.
“Uhh…I don’t know. Kind of?”
My wife screams Arabically. I cover my ears to shield it. She pulls my hands off the ears.
“That is it! We are moving back to Iraq!” she says.
“Back, back, movin back to Iraq. Got my foot in a cast and a fanny pack,” “raps” my son.
“It can’t be so!” I mouth loudly. “We can’t go back now!”
“Two loked-out G’s playin pinball, mad collectors of rare antique dolls.”
“We’ve lived here two years, Raykeem. Face this–you are not going to find that man!”
“Yes I will!”
“What are y’all talking ’bout?” questions Aymon. “Is Dad gay?”
“No!” says I. “I wish people would stop saying that!”
Not gay. I promise.
“I’ll tell you what I talk about,” says Milkah. “Do you want to know why we rearranged our lives and moved to America?”
“I thought it was for freedom.”
“We lied to you,” says my wife.
Wife
“We moved to this country because your father wants to apologize to an American soldier that he shot in the Gulf War.”
I had never heard myself say it aloud before. It’s even stupider sounding in the air than in the head. My husband is a foolish man with foolish ideas. I was a fool for giving up my life for him and following him here.
“Why?” my son asks.
“I just feel awful about it,” says Raykeem. Fool! War is what men do! They shoot at each other. Men have always fought, since before men were men. They have always fought wars and always made love. Perfectly natural. Why should he feel awful about it? It is not as if it is something personal.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” asks Aymon.
“I didn’t want you to think I was a bad person for shooting someone,” says Raykeem. That’s not the only reason. He doesn’t want his son to tell people that his father is totally nut-balls in the head.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to think your father was fruitcake,” I say.
“I already thought that. Look at how he dresses.”
I look at his father. He is wearing the stringy tanktop and short shorts like he likes.
“This is how United States peoples dress!” says Raykeem.
Raykeem Fuquay is not gay. He looks and acts like so, sissy and lovey and so, but he is all man. I do wish he were into penis for an excuse to get out of all this.
“How do you know the guy you wounded lives here?” asks Aymon.
“I don’t for surely, but he’s gotta be located somewhere down here nearby. I saw he was wearing a Kentucky Wildcats logo on his military helmet. We chose to settle in this town for now since there were so many of such logos seen here.”
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I look at my son looking at his father strangely.
“Look, I realize our reasons for moving here may seem somewhat, uh—”
“Retarded?” says Aymon.
“Yes. But who gives a care?! No regrets here!” continues Raykeem. “I’ve grown to love this wacky country. I love the people. So diverse. Could I be friends with black men and little girls in Iraq?”
I can no longer take this man’s shit. I jump up and throw my napkin on the table.
I run off to the bedroom before they can stop me. I don’t care if we ever sit at the eating table again. I don’t care if either of them follows me back. I want to go back where we belong. I don’t care, even if I break this home for good.
Ray
We practice the band music in Luster’s dirty living room. It is tiny here. Not a good place to be in general. We don’t make it better, because I’m not for suresome, but I think our music is sucking badly.
Aurora got the beat but hits cymbals and floor-tom too oftenly. She’s giving off a bad noise. Ember’s four-string thing is too big for her, and she barely can stand up with it. Opal plays electric guitar awesomely, but she plays solos when she probably should not. I am having bad trouble remembering what I am playing on my keyboard guitar. But at least Luster is putting everything in the world into his singing.
“Girl, you move like a squirrel!” he sings. “I said gir-ir-ir-irl, you move like a squirrel! And I found the cure to the common cold. It’s you!”
Then young Ember falls over with her big guitar on top of her. Luster tells us to stop playing.
“That sucked a possum’s ass,” he says. “That was crap quadrupled. I do not even know if that was rock music or not. Ray, did you even know what song we were playing?”
“‘Hygene Bygene,’ right?” I asks.
“No!” shouts Luster. “It was ‘Squirrelly Girl!’ Was that not obvious!?”
“I’m sorry. I have a lot on the mind.” Like others, Luster gets very impatient sometimes. He seems obsessed with moving forward. While I am feeling so behind.
“Fine,” he mouths. “Let us move on to ‘Classroom Assroom.’ You start that one, Ray.”
“Right.” I tell my fingers to play an opening melody, when I notice that Luster is giving me a dirty one.
“Hold on,” he says. “That was not ‘Classroom Assroom.’ That was ‘Ironic Decency.’”
“I’m—I’m sorry.” To be honestly, I had no idea of what I was playing. It may very well have been Spin Doctors for everything I know.
“Is there something wrong, Ray Fuquay?” asks Luster.
“It’s…it’s just that my wife and I had the big fight last night. Now she’s going to take my son and return to Iraq.”
“Oh my God. Is she serious?” asks Aurora.
“Afraid so. She was packing up her ’jamas this morning.”
“Bummer,” says Luster. “No, let me update that. That is a flaming bummer.”
They all tell me they are sorry. I don’t know if it’s the language or what. But it’s hard to give up appropriate responses when people say they’re sorry in sorry situations. Others have this problem. I said “I’m sorry” at a funeral once here. The woman said, “I am too.” Words can’t get it through sometimes, or all the times.
“Thank you. But okay, ‘Classroom Assroom,’ take two.”
“Hey, you have had a rough day today, Ray,” words Aurora. “Maybe we should call it a night.”
“Perhaps so,” voices Luster. “This practice is sucking Belinda Carlisle anyhow.”
With the day problems getting in on the night’s thunder. It seems like that is how our practices always end.
“We don’t suck that bad for a band that’s only practiced like five or six times,” says Aurora, taking down the drums.
“Exactly. That is the problem,” tongues Luster. “This was only our sixth practice. We should be practicing like six times a week if we really want to get somewhere.”
“You know your brothers wouldn’t go for that,” says Opal.
We hear deep, booming car speakers that shake the whole house. Another form of night’s thunder working against us. Boom, boom…boom.
“Speaking of my brothers, here they are,” yells Luster over the noise. “Aurora, why not patch things up with your dad? Your house would be perfect for practice.”
Luster is right. Aurora has a soundproof basement, and she lives in a rich neighborhood with not much neighboring. But as it goes so oftenly, a person is the problem. Since Aurora went Satanist, her dad will not speak to her.
“It’s not that simple. He’s convinced we’re like a death metal band. I know he wouldn’t allow it,” says Aurora.
“Tell him we are not death metal. Tell him we are a power-pop new wave heavy metal punk rock band that rocks to the fifth power impossibly,” speaks Luster.
The noise from outside stops, and three of Luster’s brothers enter. They are big guys wearing sunglasses, basketball jerseys, bandanas, baggy jeans, gold jewelry, and all named Jerome.
“Ah, fuck. Y’all freaky mothah fuckas playin that freaky shit again?” words Jerome.
“Yes, Jerome, you assface. We call it rock music,” says Luster.
Jerome throws a brown paper bag on the couch. I can tell just by looking at it that it’s probobably bad. But I totally realize it might only be groceries. I don’t care what Luster says. People still deserve the doubt benefit.
“Well, speaking of rock, little brother, Jerome and me finally got us a shitload of crack rock, ya know whum sayin, and we gonna sell that shit now, know whum sayin, so you and your mothah fuckin friends should fuck off, ya know whum sayin.”
I could not speak worse. Jerome throws a big gun down on the coffee table. The other Jeromes stand on both sides of Aurora.
“Shit, Jerome,” says Jerome. “We might let this one stay, ya know whum sayin. Whuzup.”
“Hi,” says Aurora. She looks very uncomfortable like.
“Whuzup,” words Jerome.
“I guess congratulations are in order for my brothers,” says Luster. “Selling crack is the pinnacle of their earthly careers. They have been waiting their whole lives to graduate from selling marijuana and acid to selling crack.”
“Shit yeah, mothah fucka,” replies Jerome.
“Why not reward yourself by watching Scarface for the thousandth time?” asks Luster.
“Probably will, you know whum sayin,” replies Jerome.
I think I am the only one that notices that Ember has just taken a Ziploc bag full of whitish stuff out of Jerome’s brownish bag. But this could still be groceries. She can easily hide the baggie underneath the big T-shirts like she wears.
I say nothing. Ember is a very bright bad girl. I’m sure she knows how she’s doing. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. So I keep it quiet. I shut my mouthhole and let things be.
The brothers still stare at Aurora. She smiles nervous like. In public places, she always feels self-conscious. Thinks people are looking at her. But that is probably because they are. Right now is such.
“Uhh, Luster, maybe I could denounce Satan for the sake of the band,” she says nervilously. “Besides, my dad is a minister. He’s always preaching about forgiveness.”
So does my heartless wife with her Allah, Allah, Allah.
VI. Raging Whore Moans
Aurora
Does anyone ever look at me and feel guilty for having legs that work? Do they count their blessings? Do they pity me? Or do they curse the fact that I’d make a lousy whore and that I’m a useless waste of ass?
I don’t have to worry about that last question with David. He treats me like he’d treat anyone. I might as well not have the wheelchair. Of course, he has his flaws, but none of them are tragic. His hair reminds me of a Backstreet Boy, he likes jewelry too much, and he dresses way too plainly. Plus, I’m pretty sure he’s one of those guys who went from liking country to rap between his sophomore and junior years and changed his wardrobe accordi
ngly. But the superficial stuff doesn’t matter anyway. Just so he’s good to me.
“So I said, ‘I’d tell you…but then I’d have to kill you!’” says David. Oh yeah. His sense of humor is way average, too. The Mexican guy he’s talking to laughs at him anyway, though.
“All right. We’ll keep in touch, bro,” says David, doing what he calls networking. “You go help yourself to some chicken. Get one of the girls to pump you some beer.”
“Thank you,” says the Mexican guy. David turns to me.
“That reminds me—we should eat Mexican sometime. I know of a place that has phenomenal burritos.”
“Yum,” I say.
A guy eating a chicken leg runs into me. I guess he didn’t see me down here.
“Excuse me,” I say.
“Whoa. Sorry. Didn’t see you down there.”
I’m at a party at David’s apartment, or his “bachelor’s pad” as he likes to call it. He has one of these parties about once a month for no reason and invites his workers and his old friends from high school. He has a really nice place, but half the party is always outside on the sidewalk where the smokers are.
A couple of the girls are trying to get to David, but I’m kind of in their way, so they have to maneuver around me.
“Oh, I’m just getting in everybody’s way—the story of my life.”
After hearing me say this, David doesn’t offer me any sort of reassurance, which kind of pisses me off. I roll back toward the wall, out of the way.
“Great party,” says one of the girls.
“Yeah. Kick ass,” says another.
“Thanks, girls. All I have to say is party hard tonight, ’cause you’re gonna have to work hard tomorrow. We’re gonna be up to our asses in alligators once the new liquid chicken special starts. But, uh, work hard, play hard. Right, girls?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s my girls. Now go eat some chicken.”
The girls walk away, and David notices me over by myself against the wall. He suddenly pulls from his pants one of those cheap disposable cameras.
“Hey—look sexy!”
I offer him a seductive but playful glance, and he takes my picture.