by H. M. Naqvi
When the cops glanced inside, AC raised an invisible glass to his lips and took several generous swigs while pointing to the crumpled figure beside him, suggesting a state of obvious and utter inebriation. I sat immobile but shitting bricks because in that instant I knew that anything could have happened. I murmured a prayer, an appeal to the Beneficent and Merciful, and perhaps divine intervention worked: eager to avoid the rain, to get back to their coffee and doughnuts, or just to shoot the shit, the two walked away for the second time that night.
“This happen to you before?” AC asked. I shook my head. “First time?” I nodded. “Let’s get out of here.” As we drove past the squad cars, AC beat on the partition like it was a tabla, “Fuck tha po-lice comin’ straight from the underground / Young nigga got it bad cuz I’m brown …”
Jimbo, stirred from his stupor, chimed in: “I’m not the other color, so police think / They have the authority to kill a minority—”
Interrupting, my VP asked, “Who are you guys?”
“Call us Metrostanis, chum,” AC chortled. “Cheers! Skål! Adab!”
Although AC seemed to be entertaining himself, I had had enough fun for the evening. If the encounter with the Duck had left me saddened and stung, the brief encounter with the authorities had shaken me up. And I felt reckless for taking unnecessary liberties with the cab on what was, at the end of the day, a lark. I had already decided to take my VP where he wanted to go: back to work. On 9/11 he, along with the other occupants from 7 WTC, had been evacuated to the building built like a fortress on Greenwich, less than a mile north, so they could continue conducting the business of business.
As AC jammed and jounced like a robot to one of Jimbo’s remixed tapes, I sped the ten odd blocks toward our final stop in the city without saying a word. It seemed of all the cantons in one of the largest cities in the world, we kept circling back to the periphery of disaster. Stopping curbside by the giant red umbrella, I announced, “No more joy ride.”
My VP looked up with the face he would make when an Excel sheet didn’t add up or, as he would say, iterate. “Why?”
“Because, ah, all good things come to an end,” replied AC, reaching for the door handle and nudging him out.
“But—”
“Here,” AC said, pressing something into his palm. “Here’s an Ativan.” AC was known to administer benzodiazepines and barbiturates like Tic Tacs. He had an ample supply. He would order generic varieties in bulk from Pakistan, where drugs were something like one-tenth the dollar value. “And don’t forget to drink a lot of water. Good luck. And Godspeed!”
“But—”
“But what, chum?”
With his shoelaces untied and his moist hair stuck to his forehead, my VP had the air of a child abandoned by his parents at summer camp. “Why am I here?” he asked, as if posing a question about the nature of being.
“You give this address,” I replied.
“I did?” he replied quizzically. “Wonder why … I got fired today.”
“You poor bastard,” AC said without missing a beat. “I suppose that’s poetic justice, chum.” In a final act of charity, however, he pulled out a wad of cash from his jacket pocket. “Here’s two hundred and fifty bucks. Go find yourself a cab.”
6.
The last time we had been in Westbrook, Connecticut, it had been on a perfect, moonlit midsummer night for a Fourth of July barbecue. The Shaman must have had two, three hundred people over but was nowhere to be seen himself. There was the whiff of smoking meat and mesquite and mosquito repellent in the air, and suddenly the fireworks began with a volley of color like a rainbow in the dark. For a few minutes everybody stood still, oohing and aahing and staring at the sky. Then a horsey blond in a neon-orange boob tube, who could have been the Shaman’s girlfriend, directed us to the bar at the far end of the lawn. The bar was manned by a paunchy Pakistani Christian who introduced himself as Ron and religiously plied us with the choicest liquor for the remainder of the evening as if it were a matter of jus soli or national duty.
It was an eventful night. We all got lucky. A tall, kimono-clad mulatta with cat eyes and a delicate chin waltzed up to me and pulled me to the dance floor, insisting in a breathy whisper on teaching me the “forbidden dance.” We made a spectacle of ourselves, gyrating and grinding to the classics of early nineties techno. Then, under steaming silver dishes and assorted cutlery, I would see fireworks again. When we returned to the bar, sweaty and flushed, our clothes speckled with grass, Ron slid us shots of a concoction garnished with slivers of cayenne pepper and sugarcane that he called the Karachi Special. Although the tonic revived me, my partner, dizzy and weak-kneed, dozed on a lawn chaise like a Wyeth. In the interim, Jimbo had been chatting with a taut, tanned, long-necked, middle-aged southern Californian, cultish about dharma yoga. “Know anything about it?” she asked. When Jimbo uttered an innocuous “um,” the Californian excitedly mistook it for “Om,” and soon afterward led him to some low bushes. He would emerge sixteen minutes later—we were keeping time—sporting an agreeable grin and an open fly.
AC met two girls from Georgia, with whom he had a threesome in the toolshed. As evidence, he would pick a wood shaving out of his ass. His adventures, however, had only begun. A heavyset girl with a fringe of red hair would follow AC back to the city afterward, where they would wind up on the fire escape of his building, smoking authentic charas from Pakistan’s northern badlands, shooting the breeze and making out to a “rosy and elastic dawn.” While they were at it, they lost their clothes to the river breeze—he, his shirt, she, her skirt—attracting the attention of the horrified tenants of the adjacent building, who called the police on them. When the cops showed up, however, and banged on the door, AC and his paramour slid down the fire escape and scampered to the corner bodega. New York’s finest managed to catch up with them, but when asked whether they were “the two humpin’ up on the sixth floor,” they denied all knowledge, “like Adam and Eve before God.” When a cop asked, “Then where’s your top, wiseguy?,” AC solemnly replied, “We were playing a couple of hands of strip poker, officer. Surely we haven’t broken the law?” The cops persisted. “It’s actually an annual ritual. We, ah, celebrate Independence Day in this manner every year. After all, this is the land of the free, home of the brave.” The authorities relented.
But before all these theatrics transpired, we spotted the Shaman by the garage entrance beside his tall shadow, sporting an off-white linen jacket, a cream T-shirt, and baggy trousers. Prematurely bald, his few strands of hair were combed back, and his liquid eyes gleamed like nuggets of gold. He held an unlit Sobranie Black Russian, though he didn’t smoke, and a long cocktail glass fitted with an umbrella, though he was an avowed teetotaler. You could never figure him out. “You guys have a good time?” he asked. Great fucking party, yaar! we said. Bohaut maza aya! We hugged him drunkenly sentimentally, and expressed further gratitude. The Shaman seemed very pleased and informed us that such rocking soirées would become a regular feature at his place. We had not seen him since.
When we arrived, it was raining with the consistency of tap water. Turning into Elm Street, we could make out the outline of the Shaman’s slanted, triangle-shaped house. When we pulled up to the curb, AC looked at me, his face momentarily lit by lightning, then at Jimbo, before getting out. Jimbo and I looked at each other, unsure what we were supposed to do, so we sat for some time, watching the wiper slither across the windshield, the red rain in the car lights. Then I decided to follow. Sprinting up the front lawn, I was lashed and nearly slipped on the incline as a clod of earth gave way under my foot. It would have been a fine way to end the evening: sprawled spread-eagle with a fractured toe in Connecticut. There was no sign of AC, or the Shaman for that matter, on the porch: the lights above the entrance were switched off, the door was locked, and I couldn’t peer through the bay windows because the blinds were down. Of course, it was after two in the morning and if home, the Shaman would have been fast asleep—as we should have
been.
Presently I heard a dull clamor around the corner, and when I peered into the darkness, I thought I saw a large, raccoon-sized animal burrowing into an opening into the side of the house. It was kind of spooky. Then something grazed my neck, as brittle as a new toothbrush. Crying like a girl, I turned around to find Jimbo looming over me. “Boo, hoo,” he mumbled solemnly.
“Stop screwing around!” the raccoon shouted. It was unmistakably AC.
“What the hell are you doing, yaar?” I shouted back.
“Breaking and entering, chum!”
“Did you try the doorbell?”
“Yeah I tried the doorbell … car’s not in the garage … he’s not in.”
There was more noise from AC’s general vicinity. When I squinted to see what was going on, it seemed he had been swallowed headfirst by the house. A minute later his disembodied face, partly obscured by a wet confusion of hair, appeared in the window. Opening the door, he stood before us with his trousers rolled up to his ankles and soiled at the knees, instructing us to find the lights. I switched on a standard-issue bachelor halogen. The space was bare save a black, faux-leather couch facing a nineteen-inch TV. Apparently the Shaman adhered to the tried-and-tested minimalist aesthetic. The cover of the underrated flick The Yards was wedged in the crevice of the couch near an empty bottle of Gatorade. An onyx vase and a framed photo, presumably of his parents, adorned the fireplace. They appeared to keep vigil, Father Shaman in a skullcap and hennaed beard, Mother Shaman featuring a tight headscarf and downy mustache. “Dudes are hard corps,” remarked Jimbo. At the other end of the room, a modern kitchen with polished aluminum surfaces spilled into a dining area, minus chairs and table. The Shaman must have recently done groceries because soup cans, cola bottles, and pasta boxes, as well as cartons of Chinese takeout, were strewn across the counters. Near the sink, a knife jutted out of a variegated melon.
“Why’s it so goddamn cold?” AC asked nobody in particular.
A faint electric whir could be heard over the sound of rain on the roof. “Air-conditioning’s on,” I observed. “I’ll find the thermostat.”
“And open the windows, chum,” he yelled after me. “It’s oppressive in here.”
The thermostat was located in the pantry by the kitchen. The needle was shy of fifty degrees. It was weird. The system groaned when I shut it down. As I turned to join the others, I noticed something weirder. Instead of cereal boxes and mineral water, the shelves were stocked with rows of cigarette cartons. There were local, garden-variety Marlboros and Camels and Parliaments, as well as an extensive collection of exotics: Gauloises, Gitanes, Ducados, Caballeros, du Maurier, David-offs, Dunhills, Rothmans, John Player Specials, Sobranie Black Russians. “What the hell,” I muttered to myself. It didn’t make any sense at first. Then it did. Eager to disclose my discovery, I emerged from the pantry like Moses from Mount Sinai, only to find Jimbo propped against a wall in the dining area, staring into space. I don’t think he noticed I was there. “Everything all right, yaar?” I asked. Then AC called from upstairs: “You guys coming or what?”
We marched up to the second floor, where we found three and a half mostly empty rooms—enough space for the average family of four, plus floppy-eared Labrador. The smell of dirty socks and stale deodorant hung in the air of the smallest room. A heap of clothes lay on an office chair, a pair of buckled suede shoes and a shopping bag lay next to the closet, and a row of shiny suits, bright shirts, and printed ties hung neatly inside. A ragged pink duvet was rolled into a ball on the twin-sized mattress on the floor as if the Shaman planned a laundry run. The other rooms were carpeted wall-to-wall in steel gray and wholly unfurnished, save a selection of random artifacts: a phone charger, a prayer mat printed with the image of the Kaaba shaded by palm trees. We noticed that there were no garbage cans anywhere. Wrappers, receipts, crumpled tissue paper lay in small heaps in corners. In the bathroom, we found a battery-powered yo-yo, a six-year-old IKEA catalog, and books that were must-reads in some circles: Liar’s Poker and The Art of War. For good measure, we parted the goldfish-themed shower curtain and checked the bathtub, where we found a coil of dried hair on the drain cover.
After completing our survey of the premises, we collected dumbly on the landing. “Can anybody tell me what we’re doing here?” I asked. Teetering on the railing, Jimbo slid off and dumbly escaped downstairs. I felt horrible for him. “Can you tell me what the hell we’re doing here?” I repeated myself. Concentrating on his mud-stained two-toned rattlesnake-skin boots, AC said nothing. I couldn’t tell if he was tired or plotting his next move. It didn’t matter. Either way, I was pissed. The night, from my vantage, had been a proper fiasco.
“Did you know,” I began, “the Shaman runs some sort of cigarette operation out of the pantry? I bet he’s out running cigarettes out of the trunk of his Merc right now.” AC noisily scratched his nape in response. “Or maybe our man got lucky tonight,” I fumed. “Maybe the sheikh shtick works out and he stays the weekend out in Long Island with some hottie. Who knows? Who cares? I don’t even know this guy, and neither do you. I know this much, though: you’re on some stupid trip. I mean, is this about the Shaman, or is this about you?”
Storming down, I joined Jimbo. I figured he needed us more than the Shaman. Sprawled on the couch, he stared at a corner of the ceiling, one arm dangling, nursing his wounds with an application of booze: a nip of Goldschläger, a memento, no doubt, from AC’s pouch, rested on his ample teat. Settling beside him, I hit him softly in the ribs, a stab at reassurance, at commiseration. “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’ll work out, yaar … Things always work out … You know what? If you want, I’ll talk to Old Man Khan. You know he’ll listen to me.” It was probably too late for uninspired bromides. He probably wasn’t even listening. He just lay lifelessly, breathing loudly. “Say something, yaar,” I said. “Say anything. How’re you doing? How’re you feeling?”
“Shitty shitty bang bang.”
Taking the nip from him, I took a poisonous swig. The saccharine liqueur burned down my esophagus. “Have you thought about getting on the wagon,” I asked, “or is it off the wagon?” but before he could reply, AC appeared from upstairs, holding fistfuls of paper like a homeless man who has salvaged yesterday’s newspaper from the garbage. In an even, by-the-way tenor, he pronounced, “So I, ah, found a bunch of receipts, and guess what?”
“Not now, yaar,” I said.
“Just listen to me for a minute—”
“No,” I cried. “ You listen to me! This is not the time!”
AC stepped menacingly close to me, growling, “I’ll lick you, chum!”
Not sure whether he was serious, I got up and moved closer as well. It didn’t matter. My blood was up. “I’d like to see you try,” I growled back.
“Well, I can!”
“You can’t—”
“Easy on,” Jimbo interjected.
“Can!”
“Can’t—”
“PIPE DOWN, DUDES!”
Jimbo’s cracked rasp startled us. I suspect it startled Jimbo as well. In any event, it worked. Chastened, AC and I drifted to separate corners of the room, checking our nails for dirt, our pockets for lint. Then we watched our friend hoist himself off the couch with the dexterity of a grounded bush elephant, steady himself on the arm of the couch, and drag himself to the music system as if it were the last thing he had to do before he keeled over. When an old Tiffany hit filled the room, he winced. “ ‘Best of the friggin Eighties,’” he mumbled, reading the CD cover. “Go figure.” Reaching into his track pants, he produced one of his signature post-disco, proto-house, neo-soul mixed cassettes, which he dropped into the player with aplomb, and returning to the couch, he closed his eyes and sighed to a remixed rendition of the song that went where troubles melt like lemon drops…
“Make face and suck up,” he instructed. “I’m gonna lie here, gonna listen to some tunes. I ain’t going nowhere tonight.”
Left to our own devices, AC and
I stretched, feigned yawns; then I proceeded to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. Before I could retire, however, I heard noises outside: a clang, the sound of footsteps, a voice calling out over the rain. Chucking the receipts in the air like confetti, AC made for the door like a child hearing telltale sounds of parents returning home after a dinner. I followed.
At the end of the driveway, near my parked cab, there stood a man holding a yellow umbrella, waving wildly, as if signaling an airplane from the ground, and before I could figure out what was going on, I saw a smallish dog—a terrier or Chihuahua—dart from the garage to the fellow. Taken aback by AC’s prompt appearance and wild-eyed concern, he yelled, “Sorry, I’m real sorry … he must have seen a cat or opossum, or something.” Standing in the middle of the lawn, hands on his hips, AC boomed, “You might, ah, consider putting Buster on a leash.”
Leaving AC in the rain, attending to the neighborhood leashing protocol, I returned inside. It was time to call it a night. I dimmed the lights, caressed Jimbo’s big head, and put away the Goldschläger, but before I made it up the stairs, AC returned, drenched, tracking dirt. “Why’s it so oppressive in here?” he asked nobody in particular.
In a conciliatory gesture, I went around opening all the windows as if it were daybreak. The sound of the falling rain and the smell of wet soil filled the room; a breeze rustled the blinds and scattered the crumpled receipts on the floor, the empty boxes of Chinese in the kitchen. Then I trudged upstairs, unrolled the Shaman’s sheets, as he must have done every night, and fell asleep.
