Jake thought he could hear Clarice from the other line. He craned his neck forward and listened.
“Raimie brought this guy into our house and I think he’s staying there,” Clarice whined from Queens.
Silence.
When they came Jake was a ball of nerves. My parents took us to Chuck E. Cheese to exhaust us so the house would be quiet that night. We must have eaten some bad pizza because when we got home Clarice and Jake both had stomach upsets. Clarice puked all over the carpet in my parents’ bedroom. She was twelve years old and my father yelled at her, asking why she couldn’t have made it to the bathroom to be sick in the toilet like any normal person. He asked her if she behaved like an animal in her own house.
“And I think Raimie might be gay,” she relished those words as she spoke them. She was thrilled to be at the instigating end of drama and to join the ranks of our family by spreading gossip. “Did you know that Raimie was gay? You should never have invited him.”
Pua dropped the phone from her hand and sat catatonic. She was horrified.
A gay in her house?! What the ass? she thought. Pupha rushed and finished the phone conversation. Clarice said goodbye and smiled into her glass of water. Jake swallowed hard, his hands yellow from the turmeric.
“Wha’ happen,” Aji asked.
“Na worried.” Pua wasn’t looking anywhere in particular.
“Wha’ you call gay?” Aji continued.
“Is when one man take a next man,” Auntie Sonia jumped in.
“Take ’em where?” said Aji, puzzled.
“Like when one man married one next man.”
“But—”
Pua glowered at Jake and interrupted Aji, speaking over her. “Jake?” He was only used to loving looks. Pua drawled again, “Jake?”
Jake couldn’t handle the pressure. He blurted out, “Yes, Raimie is gay! I’ve known all along. He has been seeing this guy, Prahlad, since he came to this conference. He told me about it. He told me that he had a crush on a Madrasi man and I told him that he should have never come to New York or come in our house because he was a filthy abomination.”
Clarice called her mother and father from Orlando. The next day they packed up all their things after my mother washed their clothes. They were going to stay with Chacha and Chachi, who also lived in Orlando but had no children yet. When they left, I wondered if Jake would be bored there because Chachi didn’t cook as much as Pua and my mother. Or she did, but there was weirdness with Chachi, Khadija-Chachi, and my mother. Basically, all of the Puas distrusted their brothers’ wives: one was Muslim and two were Hindu, and later one became a Christian. They were all from rich families, which allowed my father and his brothers never to hold steady jobs.
Pua silently stared out the window. She shifted her glance back at Jake. He still couldn’t take it.
“I bet he’s using the house as a gay whorehouse. We are away and he is just there taking advantage of how generous you are,” Jake whined.
Auntie Sonia, not to be outdone, added, one eyebrow arched, “Just look at Raimie’s mother. She comes from a different family, I mean, do you even know them? Georgetown people are all kinds of wild. No telling what kind of madness goes on in their house.” They both stoked the flames until Pua was in a conflagrant rage.
Pua trembled as she whispered, “Faggots burn in hell.” Her voice broke into glass shards. Any word spoken would have ripped through skin.
Looking at the mess, Aji spoke up to Jake, “Nevah mind who an’ who a what. Wha’ you go do? All bady na get one sense.” Does it matter what he is? What can you do? Not everybody thinks alike.
A Family Outing, Alternative Ending 3
AFTERNOON BREAKS THROUGH the windows in its liquid and particle light.
Brampton midweek afternoon ramble.
Eggplant mashed into baigan: a purple mass now brown and gold: an inside picnic. Auntie Sonia opens her mouth: an exodus of bats. Her teeth are enamel trees, her tongue a grassy knoll.
Dear land of Guyana, of rivers and plains,
Made rich by the sunshine, and lush by the rains,
Set gemlike and fair between mounts and sea—
Your children salute you, dear land of the free.
Auntie Rani’s hair grays at the temple where she’s offered bananas and persad.
Her god of wood is stapled to a tree. Meanwhile: prayers to the god of loss.
The skies are open and clear—not a single cloud shadow in sight.
Green land of Guyana, our heroes of yore,
Both bondsmen and free, laid their bones on your shore,
This soil so they hallowed, and from them are we,
All sons of one mother, Guyana the free
Somewhere a bell rings.
Pua shivers her feathers and begins her voice’s creak against the cold plastic receiver.
Jake eyes his mother and melts into a puddle of water three inches deep.
The water is clear and catches the light so well that all felled trees and squirming fish are visible.
There are no secrets in this shallow pool, except that it is poisonous to birds and people.
Pupha stands up and his head breaks through the ceiling of the house. It climbs the stairs and pokes through the second story and attic.
The sun crowns his head and burns the skin under his eyes.
Great land of Guyana, diverse though our strains,
We are born of their sacrifice, heirs of their pains,
And ours is the glory their eyes did not see—
One land of six peoples, united and free.
“A FAGGOT! A FAGGOT! MY HOUSE A BROTHEL!”
Pua collapses into her Coolie-red hair, sprouts bright cardinal wings, and flits off into the distance.
Pua dissociates for twenty minutes.
Jake begins to ripple.
She returns carrying a cutlass.
“ME GO CHOP DIS SKUNT TIDAY SELF.”
Jake’s surface tenses.
Dear land of Guyana, to you we will give
Our homage, our service each day that we live;
God guard you, great Mother, and make us to be
More worthy our heritage—land of the free.
Aji comes up from behind and bursts like a water balloon and flows as a river.
“Try dam meh, you na go hable,” she laughs as she winds her way, inundating everyone until, all about, there is only water in flow.
Amazon River Dolphin
// You unfold your lungs and dive into the dark Queens avenues filled with catcalling men and Oh-hell-no women // You walk into your aunt’s house and she puts you out // You walk into your aunt’s house and she tells everyone you know it’s a brothel // You walk into your aunt’s house and when your grandmother died no one called you or invited you to the wake because of your “condition,” because of your being “disturbed,” because of your blubber // They watch your movie where you give birth to a watermelon and you lick every cetacean seed you have seen // After each man, you lick his seed from your fingers //
// The Amazon river dolphin dries their pink body on the riverbank before dancing at parties, attracted to the din of drums // They are a skilled musician, an expert of communication where human words deflate // Their words pulse throughout the Amazon Basin // You can hear them when you lose yourself in the rain forest // If you look into their eyes you will fall into a fever // They will impregnate you or cause you to impregnate them // Don’t blame your own practice of mischief on others //
// From the shore you are singing this song of praise // From the shore you sing to the Lord who is half woman and half man // Your own body’s earth in hemispheres: the Ganga, the Jamuna, the Pleiades in your throat // Open your Caribbean lips // Spread them with one hand // Your ass is begging for it // Your song, it’s not your fault that men, women, queers drown to hear //
// In the Orinoco River the dolphin is a singer // You practiced singing in six languages since your pubes were seedlings // Your parents are from S
outh America so you can be what you will—half Indian, half mammal, half sea: wherever you locate your whole // Don’t bother explaining Indian indenture // Your vertebrae are not fused, capillaries close to the skin // A mollusk with one shell or two or more or not a mollusk at all but rather cetacean pink skin and echolocation //
// You are suited for locating queers // How can you be pink //
// There are river dolphins in the Ganges // There are river dolphins in Guyanese rivers // Your echolocation vibes with both species // How queer for a dolphin to live in a river // Diaspora is a queer country // How can you be at once two species from two places //
// You break your mirror in two // You hear that on the street queers are bashed over the head // Queers are gunned in the village // Queers are queers and queers // One down, yo ho, yo ho // You are a pirate // A poker // You are into men up to your balls // You are what your balls say you are // You wear eyeliner and fuck that // You are a nautical mile
// And then the cutlish, the machete // And then you learn to bisect yourself and to throw away the dolphin bones // You stop singing and visiting rivers // Your bones hang in the museum // Once upon a time a man was a man // Once upon a time a woman was part of a man // She was extracted and they live separately // The Bible is the sword in the armor of God // Follow me and I will make you fishers of men // Follow me and I will cleave you in two // Follow me and we will overfish the streams // Follow me and we will starve the boto into extinction //
// On Biologizing Bodies/Desire // A truth that is justified in an epistemological bound that is a tide // Sometimes barnacles and bivalves die from the out-tide // Sometimes being exposed hollows you // You now lapse into the realm of the mythological // You are a folktale warning sons and daughters: beware of pink bodies // It is drawn to one-two one-two drums // Two is a myth //
// Climbing into the Orinoco you feel it first in your feet // Only pain //
// Your ankles fuse and then fluke //
// You enter the river and //
// Below the silt //
Disappear
… pajire se kara kara bhaile dupahariya
kholo bahini baja rakhe ho
kaise ke kholo bhaiya hamare lugariya
gaile dhobi ghat paas ho
lewo bahini lewo mor kandha ke kanawar
kholo bahini baja rakhe ho
kaise ke kholo bhaiya baja rakhewariya
gorwa mein lagal mehendi ho …
Da bright bright mahning a-tun black black night,
sistah, keep a-doh hopem.
How me can hopem a-doh me clothes gone
a-dhobi ghat side fe wash.
Tek dis me sistah, tek dis, me shouldah ke clat,
hopem a-doh na sistah.
How me can hopem a–doh
me foot na get mehendi?
Early morning, midday, the sky blackens.
Open the door, sister.
How can I open the door when my clothes
have all gone to the washer’s by the river?
Take this, sister, take this my shoulder cloth.
Open the door, sister.
How can I open the door wide, brother,
fresh mehndi dries on my feet.…?
Aji Recording: Song for the Lonely Season
aawan yaawan kahe gaye
ke dole barhomas
patta tute daar se ke
legaye pavan urdai
aise chhute yaar se
ki man kahan na jai
kaise kaise zabana
badal gaye re
Jus so Hindi a-change.
Jus so Worl a-change.
Awan-yawan da wind a-blow a-tree
how petal bruk from da lim an fly out.
Jus so me lub gan,
whe me haht go stan?
How time changes
everything. How the world, too,
changes. Wind plays
a folksong. Blossoms shake.
A petal flies, broken from bough.
So, too, my love left me,
abandoned,
where does a heart go?
Leaving Florida
CHULUOTA HAD NOTHING for me except my family and their judgment. The family legend goes that when we moved down to Central Florida my father drew a circle with a twenty-mile radius from each university in the area. He wanted us to live close to universities even though he’d never attended one; he also wanted his children to experience growing up in the “jungle” as he had in Guyana. What he meant was that he grew up on lands that belonged to the Waraus, the Wapishana, the Arawaks, the Caribs, the Patamona, the Wai-wais, the Akawaios, and the Makusi before the British stole them and gave them to his ancestors to settle.
Chuluota was a town in Seminole County about twenty miles from Orlando. The Seminole people had lived and resisted the American genocide on these lands. Mvskoke, Miccosukee, Alabama, Choctaw, Tamassee, Yuchi, Hitchiti, Seminole, Black Seminole, and other southeastern Native folks joined their forces together under the banner of Chief Osceola and Coa Hadjo in 1837. Thomas Jesup, a settler general, betrayed them under a false promise of peace close to Saint Augustine. Jesup raised a white flag of truce and drew the Native leaders close, captured them, and killed them. He claimed, “The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them.”
Of course, in Chuluota there are places named after this murderous settler, venerating him. The land is haunted by this history. Rivers and lakes bear their Native names as though monuments to the Natives’ banishment and elimination. If there are no Natives on the land anymore, then it is terra nullius and therefore belongs to the American government to distribute as it so pleases. Settler logic is an invasive species. The truth is that Native people are still around and look after the land. The Seminole Tribe of Florida, The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, and the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma are all federally recognized today.
I grew up in this scrubland of tall pine trees and palmetto bushes, magically alive with animals, my family’s own colonization beginning around that same time. It was in 1838 that John Gladstone began his Coolie experiments with importing 396 “hill Coolies” to work sugarcane plantations in what was then British Guiana. Part of the agreement was that the planters would prevent any Coolies from assimilation into Guianese society: my ancestors would live separately from others. This is not identical to the North American case of Native removal and genocidal practices but rather a different experience of colonization that I could harmonize with those around me.
In Florida, coral snakes, white-tailed deer, small brown bats, whip-poor-wills, eastern cottontail rabbits, bobwhite quail, raccoons, armadillo, otters, bobcats, alligators, buntings, herons, eagles, hawks, and all manner of fish and bug and bird visited us daily. Emile, Emily, and I, very different kinds of Indians, would ride our bikes on barely paved roads that led to dirt paths that led to cow pastures. There were several kids my age in the neighborhood who went to late elementary, middle, and high school with me. One of them at eighteen bought a pair of plastic testicles that he hung from his car with a confederate flag. Another moved far away and fell into his own kind of white supremacy. We lived in the forest, alone and brown. There were no other people of color close by, and random men in pickup trucks would follow me or my sister for miles to finally get out of their cars to tell us to get out of the state. That this state did not need terrorists and sand n—s.
I had been home for three weeks post-graduation. I packed up my 1999 Toyota Corolla and drove from Gainesville to Chuluota at night. It was only a matter of ninety minutes, but it felt like a different hemisphere. I would miss the French doors of the room I rented, the way they opened their mouths into the covered porch where I could see in the retention pond the alligator who had become my yearlong companion. I was leaving behind friends and also Tom, the white man I had been messy with. He wanted a relationship and I wanted to be dating around.
Finishing at the University of Florida was my first-generation accomplishment. My mother, howev
er estranged from her own family, was raised in a family where girls didn’t go to school. So, her brothers became doctors, dentists, and lawyers, while she became a housewife, disallowed from completing her studies post–secondary school. After my father and mother married in London, bore us, moved us to the United States, and began struggling in Florida, my mother took classes and became a classroom teacher in the public-school system.
What will I do now that I’ve graduated from college? I wondered steadily. It had taken me six years to earn my undergraduate degree in religious studies with a double minor in anthropology and teaching English to speakers of other languages. I needed some time to scheme. I knew that I wanted to work toward some kind of racial equality, immigrant rights, and education. India had politicized me into thinking about structures of power around me, who could have what and why—who could speak what language and why.
I heard about the New York City Teaching Fellows program and a parallel program in Oakland—both big cities to be young and queer in. I would apply for these programs to get the hell out of Florida. The deadlines were not until December and January—for now I had some time to languish in the town that taught me how to shrink into nothingness.
I contacted a friend of mine who, in a new relationship, was busy but excited to put me into contact with her friends at Whole Foods in Winter Park. Mel was a young Catholic woman who in previous years experimented with the Eastern philosophy of Ram Dass and Eknath Easwaran. We spent time meditating in open fields. Canoeing in the spring-fed Wekiva river to feel the earth’s energy move us. She was hoping it would move into my dick, and that I would discover that we were meant to be together.
Antiman Page 14
