The Hungry Ghosts

by Shyam Selvadurai

  A man in his thirties stood before me.

  I struggled to my feet and thrust out my hand, dumbly. He held it in both of his, head cocked to one side, blue-grey eyes twinkling to say it was okay for me to be nervous and he was glad to see me. I got a whiff of his cologne, a sweet lime fragrance.

  “Let me get a coffee too.” He patted my shoulder and went to the counter.

  I sat down, and after a few moments allowed myself to examine him as he stood in line.

  For an older man, he was quite handsome, with tanned skin, broad cheekbones and square jaw. I liked how, when he smiled, furrows cut through his full cheeks and the pink bags under his eyes grew more pronounced and shiny, little lines radiating out from them like eyelashes. The top buttons of his white shirt were open to reveal a turquoise tank top underneath, short sleeves rolled up to draw attention to his biceps. I could not tell if his stockiness was muscle or fat, as his shirt was loose. He might have been aware of my scrutiny, for he casually looked everywhere but at me.

  When Ronald came back, he declared, “So,” and sat down, swinging his leg over the chair as if mounting a horse, “tell me how you are doing in Canada.”

  “Fine, fine,” I replied, grateful he had started with a neutral subject. “It’s such a great country,” I continued, lying like I always did to Canadians. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here. Everything is so ordered, so clean. The people so nice and welcoming. Yes, it’s wonderful.”

  “Wonderful?” His blue-grey eyes twinkled, those attractive little pouches appearing under them. “That is not a word I would use to describe this place.”

  “No?” I asked, surprised.

  “I find most of my fellow Canadians pinched and Protestant. Until about fifteen years ago, you couldn’t get a drink on a Sunday. Even sidewalk cafés were illegal. I hate how unnatural and artificial and snobbish people are. And how it’s always about outer appearances. Canadians are so uptight physically; we never touch and embrace in the casual way people do in other cultures.”

  As he spoke, he struggled to keep the merriment in his eyes, but he sounded wounded, as if he had been hurt by the coldness of Canadians, as if he, too, was an outsider.

  “Take Goa or Thailand, for instance,” Ronald continued. “People there are so warm and gentle and accepting of others. They live closer to nature and are more true to their real selves. I mean, men in Thailand and India who are just friends often put their arms around each other and embrace and hold hands. You would never find that here.”

  He stopped himself with a laugh and wiped his lips on a napkin. “Sorry to go on. It’s my favourite pet peeve. Now, tell me more about yourself. Do you have a job at the moment?”

  I told him about the motel and he shook his head. “Sounds dreary. You should get another job.”

  “But I lack Canadian experience.”

  “That shouldn’t be an issue, Shivan. You don’t know the system, being new here. I’ll bring you some job-searching information the next time we meet. I help my young clients get on their feet all the time.”

  “Thank you.” I blushed, grateful for this, but also grateful he was already willing to see me another time.

  “Now, on to business,” he said with a wink and a grin. He produced some pamphlets from his bag on being gay and also on AIDS and how to avoid getting it. After he had explained the AIDS pamphlet, he said, “And have you had sex with a man yet?”

  I flushed under his steady gaze.

  “That’s okay, that’s good actually. Don’t be in a rush, Shivan. Before taking that step, you should make sure it’s the right time and place, and with the right person. Someone you know and trust. Someone who has your very best interests at heart. Promise me you’ll do that. Promise me you won’t rush.”

  “I … I promise,” I replied, blushing again.

  “God, you men from the East are so beautiful!”

  He laughed at my astonishment. “Sorry, I hope you don’t mind my saying that. Do you? Do you mind?”

  “No, no, not at all,” I blurted. “It’s a compliment. Thank you.”

  Ronald smiled as if I had given him a gift, then, seeing I was uneasy, changed the subject. He drew me out with questions, and soon I found myself telling him about my life in Canada, the words pouring out.

  When we left the café, he walked me to the subway, and gave me a small salute when we reached it. “Until the next time?”

  I grinned and nodded.

  He stepped forward and hugged me. I was stiff with surprise, but recalling what he had said about hating Canadian uptightness, I put my arms around him. After a moment he pulled back, gave me a pat on the arm and declared, “Well, Shivan, I look forward to seeing you soon,” then gave me his business card.

  Over the next few days, I called Ronald late at night when my mother and sister were in bed, or from a pay phone at York when I had my evening class. He was always warm and friendly, and soon I was so easy with him that my wit, buried for so long, surfaced. I enjoyed making him laugh at my sarcasm, relished being able to speak without that creaking in my voice, or my bark of a laugh.

  One thing that surprised me was how negative Ronald was about the gay community. He told me that the “ghetto” was very “cruisey,” a word he explained meant men constantly searching for sex with other men. “You can’t go to buy a damn carton of milk or do your laundry without some queen trying to pick you up.” He also hated the other people he worked with at the phone line: “A bunch of sour, vain, shallow queens.” This was why he worked the late shift, so he could avoid “that gaggle of nattering ladies.” He spoke about the community and his fellow volunteers in the same wounded way he had talked about Canadians, as if personally hurt by them.

  We had known each other a week when Ronald asked me to his home. He lived in upscale Cabbagetown in a renovated three-storey house. When he opened the door he was beaming. He pulled me in and hugged me as if we were old friends who had not seen each other for a long time. Then he gestured to the Persian carpets, white couches, glass-topped tables, chrome-legged chairs and declared, “Welcome to my humble abode.”

  As I followed him into his living room, I gazed at all the sculptures and artwork from India and Thailand. Seeing this, he smiled. “I am an honest person, so I will tell you, Shivan, I couldn’t afford this place on my social worker’s salary. My father used to run a factory in our home town. I inherited some money.”

  He got me a glass of wine, and then, when I was seated on a couch, he picked up a photo album from the table and scooted close. He let the album fall open across our knees. We had to press them together to keep the pages balanced. “I’ve been dying to show you my Bangkok photos,” he said. As he turned the pages he pointed out the temples and palaces and floating flower markets. There were also a lot of photos of him with his Thai friends, all of them young men. “They are very poor,” he said, “I do what I can to help them, given I am blessed with so much.”

  As Ronald continued to talk about each friend there was such warmth and happiness in his face that I could not help thinking how lucky I was to have met such a good person. On the last page of the album was a letter from one of his friends, thanking him in broken English for the money he’d sent for his mother’s eye operation.

  Once he had put away the album, Ronald said solemnly, “There is something else I want to show you.” He opened a drawer in a side table, took out a framed photo and held it out to me with both hands, as if it were a sacred object. The photograph showed Ronald at Niagara Falls with a handsome man of about my age, who looked Sri Lankan.

  “Cheran Muttuswamy?” I asked and gave him a long look to say I surmised they had been lovers.

  He nodded, lips pressed together.

  “Where is your friend now?” I handed back the photograph.

  “Married and in Scarborough,” Ronald said with a sigh as he slipped the photograph into the drawer.

  “So,” he said, turning to me and rubbing his hands together, as if wishing to put a
way his sorrow, “what would you like to do this evening? Anything you want.”

  I was silent, because the thing I wished to do most with him was something I knew he would dislike.

  He nudged me in the ribs and grinned. “Come on, Shivan, be honest.”

  My grin was more of a grimace, and I looked at my hands before I said, “I know you hate it, but could you please take me to see the gay community?”

  “Shivan, you know how I feel about that.”

  I nodded, feeling bad at the pained look on Ronald’s face.

  “It’s a cesspit,” he said gently, taking my hands. “You will fall easy prey to those vultures and make your life a piece of trash. Promise me you won’t do that.”

  “Yes, yes, I promise, Ronald.”

  “You must think I’m crazy, don’t you?” he whispered.

  “No, no.” Then, feeling I had to make recompense for my slip-up, I added, “I don’t think you’re crazy at all, Ronald. In fact, I think you’re a very kind person. You’re so good to me. You really are. Other people wouldn’t have bothered with someone like me.”

  “Ah, no, Shivan, don’t say that.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “You have so much to offer the world, you do. You’re so charming.”

  “Really?”

  He chuckled at my plea for validation and took my face in his hands. “So fucking handsome, and you don’t even know it.”

  I grinned happily, but when he did not let go of my face and his look became searching, my grin pulled tight. He leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. “So, beautiful,” he murmured. His lips felt cold and wet against mine. He moved his hands down to my shoulders. “Do you mind that I did that?” I was surprised at how vulnerable he looked, as if he was going to cry.

  “It’s alright, Ronald, it’s alright.” By which I meant it was alright he had forgotten himself.

  But he took my words for permission, and he leaned forward and kissed me again. His tongue nudged my lips and I opened them. He slid his tongue in, moving it about languorously. I felt myself growing hard. I began to kiss back desperately, pushing myself into him. I pushed so hard, we nearly lost our balance. “Whoa!” Ronald grinned. “Shall we go upstairs?”

  I nodded, yet I couldn’t move from where I was. Ronald took my hand in both of his and led me up the stairs, his smile gentle.

  The bedroom was done all in white. Its king-size bed was higher than my waist. I had lost my erection and now had an overwhelming desire to urinate. Ronald pointed out the washroom, which was massive, with both a Jacuzzi and a glass shower stall. “Take your time,” he said as I went in.

  When I came out, I stopped, disoriented, in the beam of the washroom light. The room was dark, the heavy curtains drawn.

  “Over here.”

  Ronald was under the bed covers, his head and naked shoulders visible.

  “You can leave the washroom light on if you like.”

  I nodded and made my way cautiously across the room. When I got to the bed, I reached out to pull the covers back and Ronald laughed good-naturedly. “Aren’t you gonna get undressed?”

  “Um … yes … sure.” I turned away and began to take off my clothes.

  I did not know how naked Ronald was under the covers, if I should keep my underpants on or not. Would I seem too eager if I took them off?

  He was propped up on his elbow, a small smile on his face, watching me, waiting. I took my time slipping under the covers so he could tell me to remove my underwear, if that was the way things were done. But he said nothing. He settled down on his side to face me.

  Ronald put an arm around my shoulders. I did the same to him.

  He breathed out. “Wow, your hands are freezing.”

  “Um … are they?”

  He laughed to say he understood it was just my nervousness. Then he shifted into me, his hand slipping down my back, drawing me close. We began to kiss. I slid my hand down Ronald’s spine. He did not have his underwear on. But by now it did not matter, for he was pulling mine down to my knees. He drew himself in even closer and held our erections together.

  After we were done, Ronald asked if I wanted something to eat or drink before we went to sleep. He put on the bedside lamp and I saw he had a hairy paunch and his chest was flabby, his nipples pointed.

  “I … I have an early class tomorrow, I must go.” Something was crashing within me.

  “Do you?” he fondled my ear and looked at me quizzically.

  “Yes,” I declared, my voice cracking with the desire to escape. “I have left my books at home. So I must get them.”

  After a moment, he nodded and his lips set in a thin line. He gestured for me to get out of the bed.

  As I got dressed, I could feel his cold stare on me. When I was done, I turned to him. Ronald was seated, bolstered by pillows, arms folded. “Shivan, have I been a good friend to you or not?”

  “You have, Ronald, of course you have. I am so grateful for everything you have done for me.”

  “Funny way you have of showing me your gratitude.”

  “But what have I done?” I pleaded. “I have no choice but to go home.”

  “You don’t have a class tomorrow.” He said it with such certainty that I couldn’t contradict him. “You return my friendship with lies. Is that how you show your gratitude?”

  “Please, Ronald.” I came and sat on the bed. “I … I must go home.”

  He picked at a nub on the duvet. Outside, I could hear a couple passing in the street, the raucous joshing of the man, the woman’s sexually charged laugh.

  I stood up and began to fumble with my shirt buttons. Then I took off my trousers and underwear. When I was in bed again, he slid down on his side and tugged at my shoulders for me to turn towards him. He slipped one arm under my ribs and stroked my hip with his other hand. “I know exactly how you’re feeling,” he whispered. “It’s okay to be frightened, to even be repulsed by what you have done. But you need to recognize that they are your feelings and not transfer them to me. Okay?”

  I nodded. “What about my family?” I asked as a last appeal. “They will wonder why I have not come home.”

  He picked up the phone from the bedside table and set it between us.

  Fortunately, no one answered, and I left a message saying I was staying over at a friend’s house. Ronald watched me with grave approval.

  I had to work the next afternoon, and I got home to find that Ronald had called and left a message. I did not call him back. Over the next few days he telephoned often and left messages, but I never returned them. By now my mother and sister were starting to look at me oddly, wondering who this person was. To allay their suspicions, I called Ronald from a pay phone at York. I begged him never to call me again.

  “You are a sly, calculating person who uses people,” he shouted down the phone at me. “You didn’t even have the decency to call and dump me until I had humiliated myself by calling so many times.”

  I was so frightened that I hung up.

  One of the bookstores I frequented had a help-wanted sign in its window. I went in to apply and got two shifts on the weekend and one during the week.

  When I left the bookstore, a warm autumn breeze was blowing up from Lake Ontario. Gauzy clouds scuttled by at a tremendous speed, casting a lively play of light and shadow onto the busyness and colour of Queen Street. As I stood there in the crush of pedestrians, my shirt flapping against my skin, a busker played a catchy tune on a harmonica close by and the smell of roasted coffee beans wafted out from a nearby café.

  It had been a month since that final phone call with Ronald and I felt recovered from the encounter, sure that good changes were coming.

  The following Friday evening, I went down to Isabella Street. I had by now discovered the gay newspaper Xtra! and found out that there were a couple of bars here. Komrads was on the second floor and there was a line to go upstairs to the dance floor. As I stood in the queue I listened to patrons talking around me and realized I was one of the few men
who had come alone. I kept glancing over to the group in front of me, the one behind, hoping to be included in their conversation, a polite, willing smile on my face. But they ignored me, and when I happened to catch the eye of one of the men, he returned my tentative smile with a haughty glare. He whispered something to his friends and they glanced over and giggled.

  When I was finally in the bar, I stood in a corner for what seemed an interminable amount of time, looking at the passing men, watching a drag queen twirl fans on the dance floor. Finally a man stood by me and introduced himself. He was about fifty, with grey hair and a lean, sharp face. I was so grateful for his attention that, even though I did not find him attractive, I went to his apartment and had sex with him.

  It did not take me long to realize that in a community so devoted to the worship of beauty, I was generally not considered good looking because of the colour of my skin. In the meat market of 1980s gay bars, I was not prime steak. I did not, however, lack for attention. I attracted the old and the ugly, and because I had come to the bars looking desperately for love and companionship, I took what was offered to me, though none of these liaisons lasted very long, some barely a night. My foreignness was often my appeal, and these white men ascribed both a submissiveness and feral sexuality to me, one man begging me to put on a loincloth and turban that he had in his closet.

  There was a smattering of other non-white men at the bars, but I avoided them as if fearing contagion. Occasionally, an Indian man, and even once a Sri Lankan, would strike up a conversation with me, mainly to share his problems. I always kept these conversations short and moved on, not wanting to see in their haunted faces a reflection of my condition. We did not belong in the gay world because of our skin colour, yet spurned by our own people, we had no choice but to linger on its fringes.