by Adib Khorram
It was the most humiliating comparison of my life.
Hossein said something in Farsi, and Ali-Reza laughed again.
And then Sohrab said, “Ayatollah Darioush,” and all three of them laughed.
At me.
I thought I understood Sohrab.
I thought we were going to be friends.
How had I misjudged him so badly?
Maybe Dad was right.
Maybe I would always be a target.
Even for things I couldn’t help. Like being from America. Like having a foreskin.
Those things were normal back home, but not in Iran.
I would never fit in. Not anywhere.
I wiped my face to hide my sniffling while Sohrab and Hossein and Ali-Reza laughed about my penis in Farsi. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t understand them.
I didn’t bother with my hair. I scrubbed the grass off my shins, rinsed off at warp 9, then grabbed my borrowed towel and slunk out of the shower. I would have run if I hadn’t been worried about slipping on the wet floor.
The guys’ laughter followed me, bouncing off the tiles, between my ears, rattling around in my head.
I wanted to die.
I wasn’t allowed to say that, not out loud. The one time I did—and it was only hyperbole—Dad freaked out and threatened to send me to a hospital.
“Don’t ever joke about that, Darius.”
I didn’t really want to die, anyway. I just wanted to slip into a black hole and never come out.
I pulled my pants back on. I didn’t have any extra underwear. I hadn’t thought about that.
Was it wrong to go commando in Iran?
I was certain there had to be a Social Cue against that, but my options were limited.
And what was the point and purpose of following Social Cues, anyway? I was never going to fit in.
I pulled my shirt back on, fighting to get it over my wet hair and down my back.
“Oh.” Sohrab had come around the corner. I wiped at my face to make sure he couldn’t see anything. “Are you leaving, Darioush?”
“Yeah.” I hated that my voice still squeaked.
Bare feet slapped on the tiles as Ali-Reza and Hossein followed. “Khodahafes,” Hossein said.
And then Ali-Reza said, “Nice to meet you, Ayatollah.”
It was a new record for me: Less than forty-eight hours in Iran, and I already had a new nickname, one more humiliating than anything Trent Bolger and his Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy had ever come up with.
I dropped my borrowed towel on the floor, wiped my nose with the back of my hand, and made my escape.
STANDARD PARENTAL MANEUVER ALPHA
Dr. Howell says that crying is normal.
He says that it’s a healthy reaction.
He says it helps the body excrete stress hormones.
Having Hossein and Ali-Reza and Sohrab—Sohrab—make fun of my penis had me excreting a lot of stress hormones.
I was not ashamed of my penis. It’s just that Stephen Kellner isn’t circumcised, and even though it was ubiquitous in Iran, Mom thought it was important for the son to look like the father.
Like I said, we didn’t shower after physical education at Chapel Hill High School. And I wasn’t on any of Chapel Hill High School’s Sportsball Teams (Go Chargers), so I never had to shower after any practices.
And even if I had been on a team, the showers in the Chapel Hill High School locker room were individual stalls with curtains and everything.
I had never showered with other guys looking at me before.
Maybe my penis really was weird-looking.
Okay. I will admit I was pretty sure I was not weird-looking, because there was the Internet.
I knew I didn’t look any different.
Though I still hoped I was going to grow some more.
That’s normal.
Right?
* * *
The front door was locked, so I went around back. Babou was still at the kitchen table, sipping tea and eating tokhmeh, when I stepped inside. I wondered if he had been there the whole time, caught in a temporal causality loop while I was out playing soccer/non-American football and being humiliated for having an intact foreskin.
He spat out an empty shell and glanced at me as I struggled to toe my shoes off.
I had been in such a rush to leave, I had put Sohrab’s worn black Adidas back on, and they were much tighter on my Hobbit feet than my Vans.
I hated them.
“Darioush,” he grumbled. “Did you have fun? Did you win?”
“Um. Yeah. We won.”
“You played with Sohrab’s friends?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is Sohrab? He didn’t come back?”
I shook my head.
“Darioush-jan. You don’t want to invite him to dinner? Next time ask him over after you play.”
“I don’t think I’m going to play again.”
Not ever.
I couldn’t take any more penile humiliation.
Babou scooted his chair back and stared at me. “Eh? Why not?”
“Um.”
I could not tell my grandfather the boys had compared my penis to Iran’s Supreme Cleric.
“They don’t like me very much.”
“What?” Babou got up and took me by the shoulders. “Why do you think that, Darioush-jan? It’s probably a misunderstanding.”
It was the sort of thing Stephen Kellner would have said.
I blinked and blinked because I didn’t want Babou to witness my stress hormones build up to a containment breach.
“Why are you crying, baba?”
“I’m not.”
“You know, in Iran, boys don’t worry about these things so much.”
“Okay.”
“You can’t let these things bother you.”
I sniffed. “I’m gonna take a shower.”
I hadn’t really finished back at the soccer field. I was still covered in grass and I hadn’t actually washed my hair.
Being humiliated was very distracting.
“Okay. Don’t worry, Darioush. Everything will be fine.”
It was easy for Ardeshir Bahrami to say that.
He didn’t know what it was like to be a target.
* * *
In the privacy of my shower, I scrubbed off the last bits of green and washed my hair. I stayed in there as long as I could. I didn’t want anyone to hear me sniffling.
When the water started to cool off, I decided I was done. I wrapped myself in one of Mamou’s towels. It felt much warmer and softer than Sohrab’s scratchy one.
I sniffled, turned on the Dancing Fan, and hid in my bed.
I didn’t actually sleep. I couldn’t. Sohrab’s laughter kept dancing around in my skull. And the way he had said “Ayatollah Darioush.”
I was so sure Sohrab was like me. That he knew what it was like to be different.
I was convinced we were destined to be friends.
But Sohrab Rezaei was just another Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy.
* * *
Someone knocked on my door.
I was on my side, studying the tiny imperfections in the lemon rind texture of the wall. “Uh. Yeah?”
After a second, the door creaked open. “Darioush?” Mamou asked. “Do you want a snack? Something to drink?”
I glanced over my shoulder. “No thanks. I’m not hungry.”
“You sure? We have tea. And cookies.”
“I’m sure.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just tired,” I said. “We played a long time.”
Mamou slipped into my room and maneuvered around the Dancing Fan. I gripped my covers a little tighter, because I hadn’t actually got
ten dressed after my shower. Mamou leaned over me and kissed me on the forehead. She played with my hair, which had air dried into a curly mess. “Okay, maman. Get some rest.”
I didn’t, though. A few minutes later Dad came to check on me too.
“Darius?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to get up?”
“No.”
“We’re waiting on you for tea.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“You have to come have tea with us,” Laleh complained from the door.
I was not in the mood for tea.
It was the first time in my life I had ever not wanted tea.
“I don’t feel like it.”
Dad dodged the Dancing Fan and sat beside me on the edge of the bed, generating a gravity well to try and pull me out.
Standard Parental Maneuver Alpha.
“You need to get back on a proper sleep schedule. Come on. Get up.”
“I will. In a little while.”
“Now, Darius.”
“Dad . . .”
“I’m serious. Let’s go.”
Dad grabbed my blankets, but I clenched them harder to stop him.
“Dad,” I whispered, “I’m, uh, naked.”
I did not think I could survive any more penile humiliation today.
Dad cleared his throat. “Laleh, why don’t you go on?”
“Secrets don’t make friends!” she said.
Sometimes my sister was very nosy.
“It’s not a secret, Laleh. It’s just none of your business.”
“Hey! That’s not nice.”
“So?”
Dad interrupted us before we could devolve into an argument.
“Go on, Laleh,” Dad said. He glared at me to be quiet. “We’ll be right there.”
I waited for the flap-flap-flap of Laleh’s bare feet on the hallway floor to recede.
And then Dad said, “Better not pick a fight if you’re not dressed for one.”
“I wasn’t trying to pick a fight.”
“I wouldn’t make a habit of sleeping naked in your grandmother’s house, though.”
“I didn’t mean to. I showered and then I just got in bed without thinking.”
I mean, I usually slept naked at home, where there was a door I could lock, but I had no intention of doing that in my grandmother’s house.
I had no intention of going number three in Mamou’s house, either. Not under any circumstances.
It would have been too weird.
Dad shook his head. “I understand. I used to sleep naked all the time. Up until you were born.” He got this sly grin.
“Uh.”
“How do you think you got made?”
“Dad. Gross.”
Dad laughed at me—laughed!—and I kind of laughed too. It was an uncomfortable laughter, but still better than Sohrab’s and Ali-Reza’s and Hossein’s laughter.
It was deeply awkward.
“Okay. Come on. I know you’re tired, but you’ve got to stay awake until bedtime.”
Dad rubbed the dense black shrub of my hair and tugged on the ends.
I was certain he was going to start on me about how long it was again. But then—
“Stephen!” Mamou called from the kitchen. “The tea is ready!”
Dad exhaled through his lips.
I blinked.
We were supposed to get along now.
“Babou said you went and played soccer. He said you made a friend.”
“Um.”
“I’m so proud of you, Darius.”
Dad pushed the hair off my forehead and kissed it.
“Go ahead and put some clothes on. Let’s have some tea. It’ll be dinnertime soon.”
“Okay.”
THE DESSERT CAPITAL OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
Dad closed the door behind him, and the Dancing Fan chose that moment to fall over.
I dug some clean clothes out of my suitcase and set the Dancing Fan back on its rubber feet.
I also grabbed the tin of FTGFOP1 First Flush Darjeeling out of my Kellner & Newton Messenger Bag. It had gotten dented on its journey through time and space, but the lid was still snug and sealed.
Dad and Laleh were in the living room, sipping cups of Persian tea. “Where’s Mom?”
“Shower,” Dad said. “Tea’s in the kitchen.”
Mamou was rinsing rice at the sink. It was a huge, double-basined one, and the windows above it faced out into Babou’s garden. It made me all prickly and nervous.
I wondered if Sohrab was supposed to come help Babou again.
I wondered how I was going to avoid him.
“You’re up, Darioush-jan.”
“Yeah. Um.” I realized I had not wrapped the tin of FTGFOP1 First Flush Darjeeling or anything. “I brought you something. I meant to give it to you yesterday, but . . .”
“You were too tired yesterday, Darioush-jan. It’s okay.”
Mamou dried off her hands and took the tin.
“It’s tea?”
“From Portland. Well, I mean, it’s from a place called Namring, in India. But it’s from a store in Portland. My favorite.”
Mamou popped the lid and unsealed the tea. “It looks good, maman. Thank you. You are so sweet. Just like your dad.” She pulled me close and kissed me on both cheeks.
If I had been drinking tea at that moment, I would have imitated Javaneh Esfahani and shot it out of my nose.
No one had ever called Stephen Kellner sweet.
Not ever.
I said, “I hope you like it.”
“You have to make it for me sometime.” She set the tin on the counter and led me to the table, where she had arranged the tea tray with sweets. “Darioush-jan, do you like qottab?”
* * *
Qottab are these little pastries filled with crushed almonds and sugar and cardamom, then deep-fried and coated with powdered sugar.
They are my favorite sweet.
According to Mom, Yazd is pretty much the dessert capital of Iran, and had been for thousands of years. All the best desserts originated there: qottab, and noon-e panjereh (these crispy rosette things dusted in powdered sugar), and lavoshak (the Iranian version of Fruit Roll-Ups, but made with fruits popular in Iran, like pomegranate or kiwi). Yazdis had even invented cotton candy, which was called pashmak.
I was fairly certain that, if you traced the lineage of all the desserts in the world, each and every one originated in Yazd.
With one side of my family coming from the dessert capital of the ancient world, I was doomed to have a sweet tooth.
It wasn’t like I ate sweets all the time or anything. I couldn’t, not with Stephen Kellner constantly monitoring me for dietary indiscretions. But even when I only ate dessert once a month, I never lost any weight.
Dr. Howell said it was a side effect of my medications, and that a little weight gain was a small price to pay for emotional stability.
I knew Dad thought it was a lack of discipline. That if I ate better (and hadn’t given up soccer), I could have counteracted the effects of my medication.
Stephen Kellner never struggled with his weight.
Übermensches never do.
* * *
Someone knocked on the door. A familiar knock.
My stomach squirmed. I thought about how I had accidentally kept Sohrab’s cleats.
“Darioush, can you get the door please?”
“Um.” I swallowed. “Okay.” I licked a bit of powdered sugar from my fingers, but Dad was watching me, so I grabbed a napkin and wiped the rest off. I had only eaten one qottab, which I thought showed excellent discipline on my part.
Sohrab was standing there, holding my Vans in his right hand, looking at something on his iPhone w
ith his left.
I didn’t expect Sohrab to have an iPhone.
I don’t know why.
“Oh,” he said, and tucked the phone in his pocket. He shuffled back and forth on his feet. “Darioush. You left these.”
“Thank you. Um. Yours are in the kitchen.”
I stood back to let Sohrab in. He slipped off his shoes and padded toward the kitchen in his black socks.
I always wore white socks, the kind that didn’t show when I wore my Vans. I did not like high-rise socks. And I did not like black socks, regardless of length, because they made my feet smell like Cool Ranch Doritos, which is not a normal smell for feet to have.
Sohrab had pants on, so I couldn’t tell if he pulled his socks all the way up—which was the fashion back home, if you were a Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy—or if he folded them over, like Dad used to do when he mowed the yard, before he delegated that duty to me.
I suspected Sohrab pulled them all the way up.
“Sohrab!” Mamou pulled him close and kissed him on both cheeks. My stomach churned. Mamou had no way of knowing that Sohrab had made fun of my foreskin only a few hours earlier. She didn’t know he’d called me Ayatollah Darioush. But I still felt the burn of jealousy behind my sternum.
I really hated myself for that.
I hated how petty I was.
Mamou started talking to Sohrab in rapid-fire Farsi. All I caught was “chai mekhai,” a phrase I had memorized because it meant “Do you want tea?”
“Nah, merci,” Sohrab said, and then something else I couldn’t follow. Whatever he said, it was magical, because Mamou didn’t even offer again.
He had defeated taarof in a single sentence.
“I’m sorry,” Mamou said, “I forgot.”
Sohrab squinted at her. I hated that he was squinting at my grandmother. “It’s fine. Thank you.”
“You’re fasting?” Laleh said from my side. She had snuck up to inspect our visitor.
“Yes. I can’t eat or drink until sunset.”
“Not even tea?”