Meatspace

by Nikesh Shukla

  ‘Dodging questions about my second novel. You?’

  ‘I just signed mine to my publisher. It’s out next spring. And,’ she pauses conspiratorially. ‘My mother has signed up for Facebook. Now that’s a delight.’

  ‘Awesome,’ I say, as if I don’t know, as if my Google Alerts don’t carry information about my peers and their big deals with publishers bigger than my own. I’m not jealous. ‘Get the families off Facebook.’

  ‘There should be a family setting, right?’

  ‘Yeah, I mean, my dad writes LOL on every status I do.’

  ‘I know, I see. He’s cute. My mum wrote on my profile picture that I had jowls. JOWLS, Kit.’ Hayley grabs my hand and gestures for me to pinch her cheek and neck. I do. Her skin is soft. It smells of berries.

  ‘It feels jowly,’ I say, Hayley hits my forearm. I wince because it’s on my sore tattoo.

  Hayley is wearing brown peep-toe shoes and I’m transfixed by her big toe. It’s painted orange. She wiggles it up and down when she talks. She has a very friendly big toe. I look at her and catch her look at my arms and my neck. She smiles and closes her eyes. She grabs my hand.

  ‘I’m nervous,’ she says.

  ‘You’re always great.’

  ‘I’m not funny like you, though.’

  ‘That’s why you’re great. You’ve got stuff to say. I’m just an idiot.’

  ‘Oh shush, you’re sweet.’

  ‘Oh … you,’ I say, not knowing how to reply to a compliment.

  I get all my funniest lines from the things Aziz says. I reappropriate them and give them a proper narrative arc. He’s not here though. ‘I’m always nervous too,’ I say, and she smiles at me. I hate talking in public. I don’t ever dare look out at the audience. That would make me realise they were there. I can’t let myself know they’re there.

  I check Twitter.

  ‘Here for the The Book Doctor Trials. Excited about @Hayleyspen reading. @kitab will bust out his Buddha of Suburbia bullshit for sure.’

  ‘The Book Doctor Trials @welovebooksbitches! @Hayleyspen @kitab @wself #lovereading #literature’

  ‘The Book Doctor Trials are starting. Who is Kitab Balasubramanyam?’

  Hayley taps my hand twice to shush me as May, the organiser, takes to the stage to start proceedings. Her attempts to rally a crowd comprised mostly of writers who feel they should be the ones performing mean the evening flatlines before the first reader takes to the stage.

  My mind wanders to Aziz and how he’s getting on just before I go on stage and so when I’m introduced, my first words are muted as I try to adjust to being in front of an audience.

  ‘His exotic words, his spicy references, his search for identity … please welcome Kitab Balasubramanyam!’

  I’ve removed my coat on the way to the stage and people can see the hint of tattoo coming out of my sleeve and I feel like dynamite.

  ‘Thanks for the introduction,’ I say. ‘I don’t know if you all guessed … I’m Indian. What’s up, white people?’ I see Mitch in the audience. My heart is pounding. I wish I hadn’t looked up. I want to run away. He shakes his head. He tells me I play the race card too much.

  No one laughs. I close my eyes and open them again staring at the page, tuning out the 20 people listening to me.

  I’m telling them a story about a sex party gone wrong and instead of bawdy laughter and claps, I’m getting stony looks as if I’m a sexist, just because I’m a bloke reading about sex. I’m reading this because I wrote it and put it in a drawer. Aziz found it and read it and said it was too funny not to read out, and by reading it out, maybe I’ll become less repressed. I never wanted it to be aired in public. Talking about sex in front of people, it feels too intimate. There’s too much focus on the meat and the flesh. I don’t like it. As soon as I start reading the story, I realise I’ve made a mistake. I second-guess how funny I think my anecdote is and rush the set-ups to jokes meaning the punch lines don’t make any sense. It feels like I’m up there for 20 minutes longer than I am and the lights are burning hotter as I mosey on down the cul-de-sac of my words. I finish and have to say ‘thanks very much, good night’ to elicit any reaction from the audience. They applaud politely.

  I consign this story back to the desk drawer for eternity. I feel embarrassed. The worst thing will be, because people automatically think you’re the subject of anything you write, I’m the priapic guy at a sex party in my story. They won’t get that it’s about vulnerability.

  ‘At The Book Doctor Trials. Not sure about this Kitab guy. Why do all Asian writers go on about being Asian.’

  ‘@kitab just rocked The Book Doctor Trials about a bawdy Indian sex story.’

  ‘Dude, it says book on @kitab’s arm. Check out the pic.’

  As I walk off to constipated applause mixed with Hayley’s charitable laughter towards the killer punch line I deliver, I wonder why she’s finding it so funny. She’s so far from jowly it hurts. She’s beautiful. Real beautiful. Like unreal and real at the same time.

  I’m presented with another beer as I walk offstage. May and Hayley both accost me at the side of the stage and Hayley grabs my free arm. May pulls up my sleeve to look at the whole tattoo.

  ‘Everyday I write the book.’

  They both nod in appreciation and Hayley rubs my wrist, ‘You were great,’ she says, and kisses my cheek. ‘Funny story.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Funnier than these douchebags appreciated. What was that line? “The only thing sadder than a sex party on a canal boat on a motherfucking Tuesday is live-tweeting it while getting a hand job.”’

  ‘Something like that,’ I say, not used to nice things being said about my writing. May takes a photo of my arm and tweets it. Hayley takes a photo of me with it outstretched across her chest. She tweets it. I look around, feeling exposed. I don’t like this. I stuff the pages with my story on it into the pocket of my jeans.

  ‘me and @kitab getting freaky at The Book Doctor. Where were you?!’

  I can see that whoever is on stage has about 50% of the audience’s attention because the majority of the audience is looking at Hayley and May taking photos with me. Mitch walks over and nods. He taps me on the shoulder, ‘Well, at least you only mentioned you’re Asian once.’ He disappears to the bar.

  Hayley links her arm in mine and we turn to the stage.

  Hayley whispers, ‘That’s so analogue.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Hey, did you get invited to Joe’s launch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah shame, man. We should hang out more. Come with me.’

  ‘Always the plus one, never the name on the list.’

  ‘Joe’s always saying nice things about you.’

  ‘No, he’s not. You know he unfollowed me on Twitter.’

  ‘He said the other day you were a great writer … what was it? Kitab is a great writer … no, he said Kitab is great.’

  ‘Great,’ I say.

  ‘You know what I mean. Come …’

  ‘Email me the details.’

  ‘I’ll diarise and shit,’ Hayley says, laughing.

  The satisfaction at the attention is the most I’ve felt of anything since Rach left. I break into a natural happy smile. I leave May and Hayley by the side of the stage and walk towards the toilet, hoping a hot girl will follow me.

  I enter the toilet alone, am doing my business when I hear a voice behind me.

  ‘Ummm, Kitab?’ A very Indian, young voice says nervously.

  ‘Yes, mate,’ I say without turning round.

  ‘You’re him. Kitab …’ he says. ‘B-B-Balasubramanyam.’

  ‘That be me.’

  I zip up and turn around. I know this man. I’ve seen him before. He stretches his hand out to shake mine.

  ‘I’m Kitab …’ he says. ‘Balasubramanyam too.’

  Without the white turtleneck sweater, he looks less sinister, more slight, more nervous. Without the laminated passport photo effect, he looks clearer,
more real, more like me. My tattoo is itching. My brain is fizzing. My hands are still on my fly. I have to hold on to a urinal to steady myself.

  ‘I know. Bloody fucking hell,’ I say, in high-pitched surprise. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ I’m between weirded out and amazed.

  Kitab 2 has become analogue. I realise I’m holding my fly and he is still stretching out his hand. Is he real? I shake my head and he’s still here, staring at me, grinning wildly, like he’s so happy to have found me.

  ‘We meet in meatspace, dude,’ he says and thrusts his hand out.

  I shake his hand in wonderment. We share a moment next to the urinal while a man farts audibly in the cubicle.

  aZiZWILLKILLYOU episode 6 Aziz vs hipster girls in thrift stores (even if they’re buff)

  [posted 12 September, 14:42]

  No one said it was going to be easy. But it bloody was. It was that bloody easy. I saw him. I saw Teddy Baker and I saw the tattoo. And it was bloody glorious.

  #bloodygoodshow

  Let me back up a bit cos I know you like all the details. I was on my way to check out these 2 dudes Teddy Baker and @justiceforpigs meeting up, from afar, from like the table in the corner, so I headed to a thrift store to get a hat and a raincoat. Why? I was on a spy mission. I needed to look like a spy. I bought a newspaper and cut 2 holes out of the cover for my eyes to peer through mysteriously. All I needed now was the mystery man spy outfit.

  So I entered the thrift store. They were playing Kenny G at full blast. It was so motherfucking ironic. And amongst all the 50s Mad Men dresses and astronaut outfits, there was a row of raincoats. Like they must be just coming back into fashion or something. So I tried a few on and this girl comes over to me and she said, with her index finger pointed to the sky like it’s an antenna directly to her leader or her god, ‘Definitely. Pulling. It. Off.’ Like each word was its own sentence. So I went, ‘Cheers, mate,’ and continued checking myself out in the mirror.

  She was stupidly hot, people. Obviously. We were in the hipster enclave of the coolest fucking city in the world, of course she was going to be stupidly hot. But this man is on a timetable, you get me? So much as Little Big Aziz wants to throw his tuppence into her ring, Big Little Aziz is sticking to the timetable.

  She ruined my timetable cos she went, ‘Are you from London?’ like London’s the only city on our fair isle. I mean, I love the regions and the peoples. The Scottish are my peoples-dem. The Bristolians get their bass bin music. Manchester, forgeddabadit. But yeah I’m from fuckin’ Laaaahndaaahn taaaahn so I fackin tell her, diiint I?

  ‘Yeah, I am,’ I told the girl and she smiled at me and bit her bottom lip. Oh hello, NOW we’re interested. She turned to her mate, an Indian-looking girl who was browsing through Hawaiian shirts. She looked up.

  ‘Hey Poo-rur-nar [I think she meant Poorna], you’re right, Indians with British accents do sound weird. So British Empire, right?’ And they walked off laughing.

  Now what is up with that racism, New York? I thought we were cool. I thought we were the best of best bloody friends and now you got my own kind, NYC regiment, racialising and brutalising me in hipster-ville. Was that a set-up? Did she know I was English somehow? And why does she think I’m from London but my accent is British? It’s not that generic, love. I doubt the Welsh or the Scottish or the Northern Irish or even a Scouser would be too happy to learn that in America, a British accent means sounding like a London rudeboy. All your regional inflections, that’s not very quaint is it?

  #badboysinnalondon

  #rudeboysinnabrixton

  But I digress (purposefully, cos I thought that little cultural exchange was worth noting). I bought the raincoat and a trilby and I got on the tube, sorry the subway, and started acting the spy. I look proper gangsta. Well, proper spy-sta. People were taking pictures of me with their camera phones. Like I was a spectacle. No one dared ask what the fuck I thought I was doing but they took photos. Probably tweet them or Facebook them – look, another NYC nutjob. But they didn’t talk to me. I started wondering to myself … how many photos are we in the background of? Look at all those photos tagged of you on Facebook – there’s about 700-1000 of them, right? Because you love the look of your face. Look at all the people in the crowd. Imagine they were tagged. Imagine you knew all their names. Imagine some of them had mutual friends with you. That would be a true world wide web. Think of all those photos of Aziz online right now that I don’t even know about. Now think about your own image. Weird innit. And I don’t even want to think about how many photos of my wang there are out there. #dickpics is a trending topic I never want to revisit. I saw a lot of shaft out there.

  I arrived at the bar, like 15 minutes after Teddy arranged to meet his mate. It was one of these dive bars you got in the basement of the red brick apartment buildings – the famous New York brownstone, home to every sitcom actually made in California ever. There were like 400 beer lamps on the wall. Polaroids of drunk girls. The same 2 miscellaneous drunks you always saw, and miscellaneous rock guitars thrashing away (which is better than the miscellaneous house music of wine bars filled with shirts and shoes and secretaries) so I was like cool, sitting in the corner, waiting. Just waiting.

  There was one guy on his own who might be @justiceforpigs. The problem was his stupid avatar is a pig on a weighing scale. What the hell is that? It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not even a literal visualisation of the man’s stupid Twitter name. So yeah, it could be @justiceforpigs. I bet his name’s something like Justin Oinkman, and he took a politics class once. 10 years ago. Cos he fancied some girl in it who was destined to become an environmental lobbyist. And he followed her there and found there was nothing he loved more than having an opinion. So he learned about politics. Because it was either that or film-blogging to get him off with his opinion-high. He looks the sort, this guy on this table. The sort of post-political guy who wears a t-shirt with an unverified slogan like ‘Cultural Revolutionary’ or ‘Drop Beats Not Bombs’ and fills his Twitter stream with worthy left-leaning retweeting of articles from the Huffington Post and anarchist bloggers. Yawn whoopty do, you are changing the world @justiceforpigs …. with your stupid fucking name and your RTs of comment blogs. I bet your ringtone is the Stars and Stripes because, oh the irony.

  @justiceforpigs made a phone call that didn’t get answered. But immediately after that, the door opened and in walked … the 3 dimensions of Teddy Baker. He looked like me. But with a more drawn nose and lighter eyes. And his hair was definitely thinning. I know it’s a dive bar, I know it’s dark but man, dude needed some plugs. And I don’t mean the butt variety.

  He wore a t-shirt that said: ‘FINE – You can take me to bed tonight.’

  He was wearing flip-flops.

  HE WAS WEARING FLIP-FLOPS AND THE WORST T-SHIRT IN THE FUCKING WORLD.

  He went to the bar and got his mate, @justiceforpigs, Justin Oinkman, a beer and himself – a white wine. This man was too cool for school. A white wine with one ice cube. He knew what game he was playing. ‘Yeah, and what? I don’t mind the taste of beer in certain situations but I’m not bound by the laddish needs of others, so if I want a motherfucking pinot grigio with one motherfucking cube in it, that’s my business, you douchebag.’

  When I got back to my hotel, I saw that Teddy Baker had tweeted that he just got home. And with the geo-positioning of his synced Twitter account, I saw that the street he lives in was 2 blocks from the bar we were just in. I lay down in my bed and start planning how to meet him tomorrow morning. I’m doing it.

  Get ready my people.

  There are 9 comments for this blog:

  AZIZWILLKILLYOU: I forgot to add, people … I need food advice. I want good meatballs, I want the best pizza and I want a good Samantha Fox … that’s Aziz for sandwich. Peace out.

  Anonymous wrote: Lame.

  Kitab: Aziz, email me. Weirdness. Remember Kitab 2? Shit got real. Send help!

  GustaveGeronimo: You can block my IP all you want, dickhead
, but know this … you are everything wrong with the internet. Who the fuck wants this vacuous bollocks? I hope the guy turns out to be a rapist and butt fucks your Paki arse till you bleed.

  DF23: LOL, is Aziz single?

  AZIZWILLKILLYOU: Gustave, I thought you were a lawyer. Does the law let you get away with racism?

  GustaveGeronimo: I’ve read back through your blogs. You are a lawsuit waiting to happen. I can’t wait till it happens and someone wipes that smug shit-eating grin off your face.

  AZIZWILLKILLYOU: You know I can see your IP address, don’t you? XOXO

  DF23: Have you tried The Meatball Shoppe in Williamsburg? Best meatballs ever.

  History:

  Why do Indian men always wiggle their heads? – Google

  Why do Indian men stare? – Google

  Why do Indian men like white white women? – Google

  I tell Kitab 2 to grab a seat while I stand at the bar and try to work out what to do. I’m thrown. I feel fizzy. I look round at the second Kitab, at Kitab 2. He’s sitting at a table staring intently at someone across the room. I follow his eyeline. It’s Hayley he’s looking at. I don’t know what to do. I’m freaked out. I call Aziz, but I don’t have any reception down here. I send him an email through wi-fi saying, ‘Call me!! Something weird’s happened.’ He’ll know what to do. What does this guy want?

  While the readings continue, I find a corner table and sit with Kitab 2 against a backdrop of exposed brickwork I wish I could crawl into. I’m still perturbed he’s here. Right here in front of me. I almost have to do one of those cartoon eye-rub-blink-blink gestures.

  Mitch stands near Will Self, waiting for his attention. Will Self rolls a cigarette. Mitch pulls one out of his pocket, readymade and follows him outside. I imagine it’s to berate him for The Book of Dave. Mitch really hated that book. He thought it was lazy. Mitch hates every writer until he’s in a room with them. He becomes a sycophant. He told me once that meeting authors was the only thing that excited him now. His day job as a lawyer, his burgeoning functional alcoholism, literary fiction – they were all muted constants. I used to think he only hung around me so much because I let him talk my ear off.