Antiman

by Rajiv Mohabir

  We both stood in silence, wide eyed. Antiman. So foreign and so familiar—familial. I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone outside my family use this term. Ever. And now this term was me. If the world lurched on in its orbit and spun or if it stopped causing typhoons and earthquakes I couldn’t tell—my knees and legs were jelly, I might as well have been standing on my head. All sound around us ceased.

  I imagined a crowd of brown bodies gathering around Prahlad and me, chanting and holding up signs that read Sharam Na Ave? Aren’t You Ashamed? Their voices picketed as ghosts moaning in unison, Antiman. Anti-man. Auntie-Man. Anty Man. Andy Man. Auntie Man. Antiman. Ante, Man. Ant eat man. And T-Man. Ant-He-Man. Against Man. An Team an. Ant Iman. Andtiman. Aannttiimmaann. Aaannntttiii-mmmaaannn. Antiman. Antiman. Antiman. My heart burst from my mouth and ran down the gullies and avenues, New York bared its teeth. It wanted to chew me up. I wanted to be eaten, to not face up to any of this.

  I was exhausted. I clasped my hands as though I were praying. Being so alone, who would advocate for the ethical treatment of me? My heart beat out bhangra and chutney as though my wedding processional had arrived unbidden. My eyelids throbbed. My voice was trapped in my chest. My body was exhausted, my knees trembled. I wanted to believe everything would be okay: Pua loved me, right? This was all just a misunderstanding that I would clear up.

  The people divided will never be united!

  After several minutes I had stopped shaking. There wasn’t anything I could do. I was staying with them for one more night, and I would have to face them again, at least to retrieve my bags before I left.

  Jake and I walked back into the house from the corner market. Silence in the streets, on the stereos of passing cars, from the pigeons roosting on the roofs of the houses. I had taken Jake’s bullshit into my pink like a fat cock. Prahlad must have already boarded his plane back to the Bay. I thought of him and our last night. We’d had a hurried farewell after sleeping a second night together on his friend’s couch. I should have done something special. I should have told him that this had never happened to me before—meeting someone who was filled with adventure and dosas—someone cool and brown.

  Jake and I walked through the door and Pua was in the kitchen washing dishes. They had finished dinner. It smelled of katahar and daal. I walked into the kitchen, to that very place I sat on Monday. I looked at Pua. She avoided my eyes.

  “Pua, I’m sorry for this misunderstanding. Please let me explain what happened.” I showed her my palms.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay. Prahlad didn’t spend the night here. We just—” I pleaded, choking on my words.

  “You’re right. It’s not okay.”

  I stood, stunned. Pua threw down her sponge and slammed the faucet shut. She walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her bedroom where she shut her door to me. I went to bed. Jake slept downstairs.

  The next day Pupha drove me to LaGuardia Airport without a jolly word. I left his house that morning—and the smells of home.

  No Hindi songs played from the radio. Just silence and asphalt. I would not hear Hindi music in that house for a long time after that, uninvited to my aunts’ homes even upon the death of my Aji.

  I would live in Queens and Aji would die and family would gather from all over the world to keep wake, but no one would call me even though I would live only one subway stop west. I would have to wear the name ANTIMAN as scales, never able to molt when it no longer fit my body. But this would also mean that I would be a dragon with wings and a tongue of flame. I would have to get used to flying.

  I sat looking at the city fade below me, lost to the haze of cloud and atmosphere. It sparkled its lights at me, winking. It knew my secret. It knew that Pua was certain to tell my father. If not Pua then Auntie Sonia or Auntie Rani. My father was going to disown me, tell me never to call him Pap again. He would call me Abomination. To never attribute anything I become to him.

  As soon as I returned home, I told my parents everything—how I remembered it happening. I told them all the details about where I was and where Prahlad was when I was there.

  Pap would lie to his sisters over the telephone and through the gossip chain, telling them that Clarice made up lies about me. That she made up this lie because when she was a child my father yelled at her for throwing up on the carpet.

  I didn’t learn this until much later, though, what he told them. He wanted to save face—to pretend his son was not the antiman that they all knew he was. I would not be invited to family gatherings for being a lying antiman. Everyone would whisper about me behind their hands like good Christian converts and thank God that their children hadn’t been ruined by the United States in the way I was.

  Aji Recording: How Will I Go

  dulhin rowe rowe piya ke ghar jana

  kaheki rowe piya ke ghar jana

  piya ke ghar jana, piya ke ghar jana

  kaheki rowe piya ke ghar jana

  sasur mare mare baans danda leke

  sasur mare mare nanad gari aawe

  saiya mare mare baans danda leke

  saiya mare gale mein bahi dalke

  kaise ham jaibo sasural

  chunari mein lagal daag

  kaise ham chipao

  chunari mein lagal daag

  Dulahin cry fe go a ’e husban’ house

  ’e cry an’ cry

  Faddah-in-law an’ muddah-in-law does beat me

  Sistah-in-law does send insult

  me husban does gimme lash wid one piece bamboo

  me husban does beat me afta ’e grabble me t’roat

  mow me go go a me faddah-in-law,

  me orhni get one stain—

  mow me go hide ’am,

  me orhni get one stain—

  The bride cries, she must go to her lover’s—

  she cries because she must go.

  My in-laws will beat me,

  my sister-in-law will curse me out.

  My love will hold my neck

  and beat me with a bamboo rod.

  How will I go to my in-laws

  with a stained veil—

  how will I hide it,

  the stain in my veil—

  Eh Bhai

  Eh eh Raimie, you get so fat; you must kiss all your aunties, we should never have moved from Guyana; no matter what she call you that is your auntie; eh eh Raimie, you must mind you daddy; oh my goodness—how can you say this about your family; don’t call me Pap; Ram ram Aji; eh eh Raimie, did you know your cousin Jake learn fe talk Hindi?; eh eh Raimie you get so dark; dis English country speak English; She only knows how to talk broken Hindi; she only speaks broken English; you are so disrespectful; when I was young I wanted to get my siblings out of trouble and here you are trying to get them in trouble; we never should have left Guyana; stop talk Hindi; did you know that Jake is a vegetarian, too?; Did you know your cousin Jake is engaged to a good Guyanese girl?; oh my goodness—I have failed as a father: my first son got his white girlfriend pregnant, my daughter dates Black men, my small son is a bullahman; why did we come away from Guyana. Shanti—your kids are an embarrassment; your hand na reach to wash you batty, how you go seh you turn big man and want take next man?; You are nothing. No one will ever love you. You are fat and hairy. You are good-for-nothing. Raimie, you must kiss all your aunties; Raimie, how’s your mother?; Raimie na must rude you auntie; Raimie you must kiss you auntie; should have stayed back home; back home na get this kind wo’t’lessness.

  A Family Outing, Alternative Ending 1

  MY FATHER’S THREE sisters, my puas, sat together in Auntie Sonia’s Brampton home. As children Jake and I called this Bramladesh since it was so brown—every other person was Sikh, Hindu, or Muslim.

  We were so clever.

  But now we were well into our twenties.

  I was staying with Pua and Jake in Queens while attending a conference. During the week they had gone away to Canada. It was summer. The phone rang
its tin.

  “Hello?” Pua answered.

  Something on the other end.

  “Oh, hi, Clarice,” Pua was smiling into the receiver. Pua thought that Clarice had called to say hi.

  Something on the other end.

  “He brought someone into the house? That’s okay—” Pua continued.

  Something syrupy on the other end.

  “He’s what? He looks like what?” Pua’s mouth gaped.

  Outside cardinals flitted between the branches of the tree clusters in the backyard. Pua stared outside at their play. The bright-colored male crushed millet from the bird feeder in his passerine beak and placed his bolus in another male’s beak. His feathers shivered.

  She dropped the phone from her hand.

  Pupha got up from the table and picked up the receiver.

  “Hello, Clarice? What’s going on?” He took off his glasses.

  Pua looked at him with wide eyes, her Coolie-red hair blazing in the afternoon sun.

  Something on the other end from New York.

  “Okay. Just stay there and we will come back just now.” He put down the phone.

  Pupha stared at Pua. Jake swallowed hard. He was sitting there the whole time.

  “What happened?” Jake asked.

  “Jake, did you know Raimie’s friend?” Pupha asked.

  “Which one?” Jake’s eyes met Auntie Sonia’s eyes before he looked down, picking at his knee.

  “The antiman,” his voice now shrill. Auntie Sonia looked at Auntie Rani who looked at Pua who looked at Jake who looked at Pupha.

  The kettle boiled on the stove.

  The kettle whistled on the stove.

  The kettle screamed on the fire.

  From the other room Aji walked into the dining area in the kitchen. She had been sitting alone in the front room.

  Pua chirped, “Clarice says that Raimie had a friend at the house and that he’s staying there with him.”

  Silence.

  “Clarice says that he swishes about like a gay,” Pua finished.

  Pua walked to where Jake was sitting, as did Pupha. They glared at him across the table. Auntie Rani and Auntie Sonia were now smiling, excited by the action.

  “Clarice says she thinks Raimie is gay. Do you know this, Jake?” His mother grew three feet taller and looked down at her son who cowered below.

  “Did you know that Raimie was gay, Jake?” Spit had whitened the corners of Pua’s mouth. Jake looked from his mother’s face into his father’s eyes.

  “Is Raimie an ANTIMAN?” Pua shouted. Aji opened her eyes wide and blinked. Her eyebrows arched high into her forehead.

  Everyone put their forks down and looked from Pua to Aji and back to Pua again. This was scandalous news and all of the aunts were drinking it up like the hot tea they would soon take after the burn of their roti-baigan calmed on their tongues.

  Aji, usually sitting elsewhere and ignored, blinked her eyes being so directly addressed. She took a sip of water and asked, “What kine ting dat?” Pua huffing before her. She did not know this word, or at least why they would use it to describe her grandson.

  “Don’t worry about it—na mine da,” Auntie Sonia replied shortly, watching with keen eyes. They flitted and flicked as flame from Pua to Jake.

  Jake shook, his hands trembled—he knew something, she thought but dare not say aloud. This would be more dramatic if it were to unfurl of its own accord. Nature was such a wretched instigator; its twin, nurturing, was equally as duplicitous and conniving.

  Pua sat like a stone.

  Pua’s pupils were lifeless like a statue hewn of marble.

  Pua’s face was glazed over, like a doughnut.

  Aji repeated to the assembled aunts, uncle, and cousin, “What is antiman?” She could taste the word. It tasted like salt: was it seawater or blood?

  “Ma—” interrupted Pua, eyes raining brimstone and sulfur flame, “I was talking to Jake. Just relax. Relax.” Her words hung in the room.

  “A-you talk ‘bout Surj ke sacand son, na? Wha’ mek you call he antiman?” Aji insisted. Pua shot arrows from her pupils and answered shortly.

  “Antiman is when one man take one next man like he a ooman.” The entire room was silent except for the air burst of Jake snickering behind his palms.

  “Wha’? Na da cyan’t be.” Aji laughed. “Man an’ man cyan’t make pickni,” Aji indignantly replied betraying a sad truth, that she did not believe that sex could be for pleasure divorced from childbearing. In her mind, this was the reason for marriage—fe mek pickni.

  “Is not fe make pickni—is when one man put he lolo in de next one batty,” Auntie Rani said, scorching the room with her Coolie-red hair, dyed cheaply.

  Silence of a scorched forest.

  Jake looked at his feet.

  “What de ass? Me na know what da hell a-you dis a-talk,” Aji stammered. No birds chirped outside, no deer, no owl, no fowl at all, no fox—nothing.

  “Dem a put de lolo in de next one kaka-hole. Raimie one bullahman, one battyboy!” Pua threw her hands in the air as though in hallelujah.

  “Even so, na mattah. Da is you bhaiya son,” Aji sang in her typical lilt. She grasped a spoon on the table and put more pepper on her plate before she began to eat again, with her fingers.

  “DEM NASTY FE SO!” Pua shouted, rattling the perfect pink and white teacups.

  Silence.

  “Jake, did you know Raimie is one antiman?” Pua clenched her teeth.

  “Yes,” Jake looked down. He put down his water glass—his hands shook with tiny aftershocks, spilling drops all over the tablecloth.

  “How long have you known this, Jake,” Pupha now whispered. Jake could sense all of his aunts’ eyes on him—the beloved nephew who could do no wrong. He sweat up a storm—he couldn’t imagine lying to his aunties.

  “For a couple years now.” He did not make any eye contact.

  “Did you know that he was having a friend that he met at the conference stay over?” Pupha continued.

  “No.”

  A cardinal chirped a summer song before it looked into the window and stammered shut its beak.

  “Jake, are you gay?” Pua asked. Auntie Rani looked at Auntie Sonia who looked at her hands twirling a napkin.

  “No, I’m not!” Jake replied loudly, his face now red.

  “Did you know that Raimie was using this house for this nastiness?” Pua continued idly reiterating. It was time to perform for her sisters, who liked a good intrigue.

  They would be gossiping about this for months, for years, for decades—that day when they got confirmation that Surj’s son was an antiman.

  Pua hemmed and hawed.

  Pua brayed and beat her chest.

  Pua slammed her fists on the table.

  Pua dashed her teacup in the sink and said bad words like hell and damn and bitch.

  Pua said ANTIMAN GO BU’N IN HELL.

  Pua flailed and wailed.

  Pua riffed and ripped napkins.

  Pua shouted her voice hoarse.

  Pua collapsed in a chair next to Pupha.

  Aji came up, put her hand on Pua’s shoulder, and said, “Beti, you cyan stop rivah f’om run.”

  You can’t stop rivers from running.

  Outside the cardinals had left their feeder. They were there, somewhere, not hiding in the woods but unseen. A bird with such bright plumage can stay hidden in tree shadows for only so long.

  A Family Outing, Alternative Ending 2

  JAKE SAT NEXT to Auntie Sonia. Brampton was always a flurry of daal puri and curry. He relished, among other things, how cold the tap water got in Canada. Canadian bags of milk.

  Oh, Canada, he thought, there is nowhere in this world better. Of course Canada is a large place, but he was home with Auntie Sonia’s children even though they were ten years younger than he was. These were Jake’s best friends.

  Auntie Sonia looked at him, her eyes bulging out of her head with affection, and fell into them like a wounded cardinal f
alls into a pond.

  “Here, eat one more roti.” She placed the daal puri on his plate. “I made this especially for you,” she said and admired him as he ate with his hands.

  Jake had just recently started to experiment with being a vegetarian. Auntie Sonia had scoured her house and exorcised any trace of meat she could find. She teased him about becoming a pandit one day.

  When we were children, about eight or nine, Clarice and Jake came to visit us in Orlando. We had moved there from New York when we found out that my sister had cold-triggered asthma. Since Clarice was my brother’s age and Jake was my age, my parents thought it a good idea to invite them to hang out with us for the summer. Since Jake moved to New York, he had become pretty reserved. I heard the adults speak in hushed voices about the trauma of being shoved into a large city from a nice residential area like Mississauga. But no one ever said that about Aji, who had been forced to relocate to Scarborough, Ontario, after all her children got married for green cards or overstayed visas.

  Pua and Pupha sat at the table. They were discussing Khadija-Chachi, the latest object of ridicule. She was a Muslim their brother married. Khadija-Chachi came from money. Aji would drink rum and offend her so she stopped talking to the family.

  Auntie Sonia was just about to remark on how their son was “wasting his life” following his passion for painting, when the phone interrupted.

  Auntie Sonia rolled to the phone and answered. It was Clarice. She was calling from New York. Jake kept eating his curry and roti.

  “Take this,” she motioned to Pua. She walked across the room and spoke on the phone.

  “A gay? In our house?” her voice rose in pitch.

  Aji entered the room from the living room. She had been sitting on the floor by herself eating. She wasn’t able to follow the flow of the conversation. When she asked questions of clarification—and she asked them frequently—she would become the butt of the joke. Instead of being insulted, Aji found it easier to sit by herself. Her children weren’t interested in speaking Bhojpuri anyway. What could they ever have to talk about?