Everything Sad Is Untrue

by Daniel Nayeri

  Reader, if you think anything of Oklahomans, I hope you’ll remember Jim and Jean Dawson, who were so Christian that they let a family of refugees come live with them until they could find a home, and who made them sandwiches with Pringles chips, which is the best chip any place has to offer, and means you’re welcome, and who let them play with their grandson’s Nintendo.

  * * *

  WHEN WE GOT OFF the plane, it was nighttime, so I had been asleep, and when we left and got into Jean’s car after we met her and everything, I realized my hat—the one Ali Shekari left me before he disappeared, to say sorry for bursting my soccer ball—was left on the plane.

  There was nothing left of Ali Shekari but my spotted memory.

  In the back of Jean’s car, driving from the airport for the first time toward Edmond, I cried. In my pocket I had three peach pits from the orchards of Mentana, and four Micro Machine cars to jump over them as if they were boulders. I had abandoned Mr. Sheep Sheep in a field, lost my kite in Dubai, and forgotten Ali Shekari’s hat in an Italian plane.

  “You don’t need any of that,” said my sister. She meant the peach pits and the cars. “Look what they have here.”

  I looked out the window, where she was pointing, at the giant water slides of White Water Rapids. It looked like the kind of place that, if you were from Oklahoma, you’d remember as a mythical paradise. For that car ride back to Jean’s house, before we met Ray and had to leave them, I thought that was exactly where we had landed.

  “Just don’t go diving in the shallow end,” she said.

  * * *

  I NEVER WENT TO WHITE WATER Rapids until my dad took us. After the last day of school, Kyle went to California again for the summer, before I could prove to my dad that I had a friend, or to my friend that I had a dad.

  That’s okay.

  In the 1,001 Nights, sometimes characters wander in and out of the story as if a sleep-deprived Scheherazade had forgotten to give them a purpose.

  It was the first Monday of summer, after the Sunday when my dad visited church. This is important because the fight that would come later, the one that finally separated us from my dad, began there.

  Pastor Hamond, you may not remember, is the one in the Dallas-made suits. He shook my dad’s hand. My dad smiled and nodded, then he leaned over to me and said, “All his teeth are fake. Every single one.”

  I laughed. Jonboy, the youth pastor, avoided us, probably because he thought I’d told my dad about him pulling out my thumb. I hadn’t, but it was nice to be protected.

  So even though my dad could have just said he was feeling sick from eating five dozen Twinkies, he still attended the special evening service, where Pastor Hamond stood in front of the tiny congregation and preached his sermon directly to my dad.

  I don’t mean that he looked at him every once in a while. I don’t mean that he made references to “other” people from other backgrounds in his examples. I mean he got on the pulpit and said, “Brothers and sisters, we are lucky enough to welcome Muzoo Niari tonight, all the way from Iran. And Muzoo, if you’ll permit me, I’d like to speak just to you tonight. Because if a shepherd has a hundred sheep, but even one is lost, he doesn’t abandon it, but goes looking for it, to save the one.”

  There is nothing more true-blue than a pastor of a small town making a sincere speech directly at you in a room full of forty people as if they aren’t there, and expecting an uncomplicated handshake deal to come of it. And there is nothing more exactly Iranian than to sit there nodding agreeably. That’s that tarof I told you about—the polite self-annihilation. The way of saying, “In your glory I turn to elemental dust, and hope only that it does not make you sneeze.”

  Or my dad was just super weirded-out, cause it was super awkward.

  Pastor Hamond didn’t look at anybody else, not even me, sitting right next to my dad. But you could tell he was aware of the audience. He was performing it all for them.

  “Muzoo, I ask you, have you felt the freedom of the Lord? Have you felt it? He’s nodding, folks. Is that a yes, Muzoo?”

  “Yes,” said my dad from the front pew.

  I whispered in Farsi, “Do you know what he’s saying?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Look at him. Let him enjoy himself.”

  I looked over my shoulder. Everybody was looking at us. To my left, Ray was stiff. I don’t think he was listening, just festering.

  Pastor Hamond went on. My mom had her Bible in her lap, underlining passages that the pastor hadn’t even mentioned. She was smiling to herself, mouthing a prayer to God.

  Reading is the act of listening and speaking at the same time, with someone you’ve never met, but love. Even if you hate them, it’s a loving thing to do.

  You speak someone else’s words to yourself, and hear them for the first time.

  What you’re doing now is listening to me, in the parlor of your mind, but also speaking to yourself, thinking about the parts of me you like or the parts that aren’t funny enough. You evaluate, like Mrs. Miller says. You think and wrestle with every word.

  It’s like when you’re hearing a great story from Scheherazade and you’re seeing past the thing to the main thing—past the adventures of the orphans to Scheherazade herself, begging to stay alive another day. The same way, in a small-town church in Oklahoma with a kinda dopey pastor, my mom could look past the thing he was saying, to the source of it.

  She was replenished by the same thing that amused my dad. And that infuriated Ray.

  By the end of the sermon, the pastor had convinced himself that he’d converted my dad, because my dad kept nodding and saying yes to everything.

  “Have you had your heart softened, Muzoo?”

  “Yes.”

  “And would you like to change your life before you leave here?”

  “Yes.”

  “And would you like to take the real plunge?”

  “Yes.”

  “Uh, Dad,” I said.

  “Would you like to be baptized?”

  “Yes.”

  Uh-oh, I thought.

  “Did you hear that, folks? That’s the rejoicing of angels.”

  Everyone but Ray clapped.

  Pastor Hamond smiled like he’d sold the car in the far back corner of the lot.

  “Alright then, let’s get a towel for Muzoo.”

  Everybody stood.

  We watched as my dad followed one of the deacons into a room that led around the stage, up to an elevated pool that looked out over the crowd. If you’re from Oklahoma, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re from Iran, imagine a big bathtub on a balcony, center stage, behind a pulpit, under a giant cross, and three grown men in white hospital gowns getting in. One of them is hairier than the others. That one’s my dad.

  The other two were the pastor and the deacon. They were both necessary, cause the next step was for my dad to renounce Satan, and then they’d dip him backward (like action movie heroes do to ladies when they tango with them), and it would take both men to lift my dad back up out of the water.

  Just like that, like Mr. Sheep Sheep, he was born again. When he came out of the water, the congregation cheered. “Muzoo,” said Pastor Hamond, “You’ve been washed in the blood.”

  My dad, soaking wet, said, “Yes. Good. Yes.”

  I think I never wanted something to be true more than my Baba believing, and being saved, and moving to America, and being in heaven together after that.

  I know it wasn’t going to happen. It’s just how I felt.

  So I was happy, is what I’m saying. And I even hugged him when he came out, even though I don’t hug people. Even the pastor. I hugged him. That was the only time I ever touched that guy.

  In the fellowship hall, everybody had cookies and coffee. I walked up to my sister’s table, where she was selling mug rugs.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Wanna walk around and ask if they want to buy mug rugs?”

 
I shrugged and picked up a couple.

  “Do you think he’ll move here?” I asked.

  “Baba?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “He can’t go back if he’s Christian,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “He did that for you, idiot.”

  I put her mug rugs down and walked to the bathroom with my eyes pointed directly up at the ceiling.

  “Be careful,” she said. “Ray’s mad.”

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, WE PICKED up my dad, who had bought another hundred dollars’ worth of Twinkies. It was just my mom, my sister, him, and me.

  I don’t remember much of the car ride except my mom was quiet. I said to my dad, “Are you really a Christian now?”

  And he said, “Yes!” and laughed. “I’m your father. I am humanity. I’m everything to everybody.”

  I didn’t say anything after that.

  I guess that was my dad’s favorite myth, that he was everything to everybody.

  * * *

  WHITE WATER RAPIDS IS EXACTLY as tubular as the commercials tell you. Extremely.

  It smells like chlorine, and the water is extra blue so it looks cleaner than it is. The walls of the park are giant logs tied with white rope, like you’re inside a ship. The snack shops can turn an ice cream cone completely upside down to dip it in chocolate without anything falling out.

  You’re supposed to wear flip flops if you’re walking from the tide pool to the lazy river, the flume ride, the group inner-tube ride, or the slides. But the paths are made of a smooth surface with little holes in it, like lava rock, so it’s no big deal if you’re barefoot the entire time.

  The first thing you do when you get there is say good-bye to your mom.

  Then you pay $28 per person, which only our dad would do in our family. On the other side of the turnstiles, there are giant floaty tubes for rent. The blue circle ones are the smallest, and you might want the green long ones for two people, but that would be a huge mistake, because they go much slower.

  Then you walk to one of the lounge “beaches,” which have no sand, but green turf, and a ton of lay-down chairs, and lockers for your clothes and shoes.

  My mom would never come here, because she would never be seen in a swimsuit. I don’t even think she has one, and she’d want to save money on the lockers. So she would say, “Go. I’ll stay with the clothes.” (And the sandwiches she would have packed to save on buying corn dogs.)

  My dad stuffed our stuff into a locker, plopped onto a lounge chair, and said, “Go. Have fun.”

  “Are you coming?” I said.

  “I don’t want to wash off my baptism. Go. Do you need money?”

  I nodded. White Water Rapids also has an arcade with Street Fighter II, which is the greatest arcade game of all time. He took out a tube of bills. “Do they take a hundred?”

  “No.”

  He unrolled it, and leafed through, looking for some other bill.

  “Do they sell Twinkies here?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Baba,” said my sister, “Stop showing everyone.”

  “Akh!” he said in Farsi. “Is my money too foreign now? It’s dollars.”

  She stopped scolding him just so he’d stop speaking Farsi. He found a five and gave it to me.

  “If he gets five, I want five,” said my sister.

  He found another and gave it to her.

  “Go,” he said. “If you see a waiter, send him to me.”

  There are no waiters at White Water.

  My sister and I looked at each other for two seconds, then turned and walked in opposite directions. I went straight to the arcade. Later, I would make it my mission to show my dad I wasn’t avoiding the rides or scared of pools now or anything like that.

  Street Fighter takes two quarters, because it’s a super premium game. Five dollars gets you twenty quarters, which is a ton to put into swimsuit trunk pockets.

  There were a bunch of big kids at the machine. But they didn’t know I had spent three years in Oklahoma already and only got two quarters from my mom to spend on a whole day, so I knew all the tricks to make a game last. And with twenty quarters, I could probably play Street Fighter for twenty hours.

  I was using Blanka, who is a monster with a hairy chest. I’m best with him. Ryu is great too, and can do kicks that Ray can do. I used to call him Rayu.

  Anyway, Mrs. Miller says I can’t write about Street Fighter because good writing cares about keeping the audience interested, so I’ll skip all my sweet moves.

  I would beat a kid, and turn to him to say, “We can still remain friends,” which you do by nodding up at them, like you’re pointing at them with your chin, and you say, “Good game, bro.” Or if you’d like to show extra respect, “Good game, big dog.”

  I was the ultimate champion for a while, until a high school guy showed up and knew how to counter my electricity move with Chun-Li’s heel stomp. When he beat me on my last quarter, he said, “Nice game,” with the nod I told you about, and that felt good, cause he was almost in college even. Then I felt a punch, right in the middle of my back, between the shoulder blades where it stings the most.

  I turned around and saw Brandon Goff from bus 209, and I didn’t even have shoes on.

  * * *

  OVER THE NEXT THREE SECONDS of life, I wished to all the djinns in the White Water area that I would become Jean Claude van Damme, and these would be my options:

  1.  Blood fist to Brandon Goff’s chest, which he would just take. Then he’d pound my face until I died.

  2.  A 360 back kick into his guts. That would drop him for sure. But then he’d catch me as I ran out, cause he was between me and the door, or the friend standing next to him would, and they would pound me and break my feet.

  3.  Scream, but I told you I had just made a new bud. He was still playing, but he’d think I was a wuss. And then Brandon, plus his goon, would pound me.

  4.  Beg my new pal to save me.

  5.  Shriek like a howler monkey, and start slapping myself like I’d gone wild and maybe see if I could scare them away.

  The options were getting worse and worse until Brandon said, “You look like you’re about to whiz yourself.”

  I was. That was the next option.

  Brandon laughed at the look on my face.

  “Relax, dude. We’re cool.”

  “We are?” I said. One stomp would have broken all the little bones in my bare feet, so I wasn’t very chill.

  “Yeah man. How’s the summer going?”

  He had his head shaved, and that made him scarier.

  “Good!” I said. This was loony town stuff. This was the guy who pantsed the vice principal on the same day he stabbed Tanner in the hand with the round metal brace that holds the eraser on the back of a pencil. He was just standing around, shooting the breeze with me, like, Isn’t it cool to bump into old friends over the summer?

  So I forgot the polite response for a second, but then said, “Uh. Good. How’s your summer going?”

  “Great, man,” he said. “Oh. Listen, your dad told me to give you this. He thought you’d be out by now.” And he handed me five bucks.

  Brandon Goff handed me five dollars.

  If I took it, I thought then maybe he’d jump me, smash my nose, and tell everyone I stole it.

  “Go ahead, take it.”

  “Why wouldn’t you just keep it?” I said.

  “There’s twenty bucks waiting for me if I don’t.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  He handed me the five bucks.

  “Your dad’s kind of a boss,” he said.

  I got back to the lounge area around the same time as my sister—I guess she got a delivery too. He was lounging back with his silk shirt open and sunglasses on. A can of Coke rested on his hairy belly.

  “Baba, what are you doing?” said my sister.

  “Nothing,” said my dad. “Do you want fries?”

>   “No. Why are you talking to people?”

  “I like people.”

  A kid ran over with a plate of fries from the concession stand. My dad slipped him a twenty. He ran off.

  “Well stop it. It’s embarrassing.”

  “It’s embarrassing to give people money?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well too bad. I like French fries. Have you ever considered that you’re embarrassed of yourself?”

  My sister looked around and saw everybody casting glances at my dad, lying on his throne. Kids were milling around, waiting for him to want something. I knew what she was thinking. Even when he was being a boss, he was doing it in a way no one else did around here. Back then, all she wanted was to be “normal,” to speak English perfectly and go to business school, and never seem strange to anybody.

  But that was the moment I realized that myths are just legends that everybody agrees on, and legends are just stories that got bigger over time. The story of my dad—who for one day became the king of White Water Rapids—was just another myth in the making. The way everyday concerns didn’t bother him, the rules he followed that weren’t the normal rules for heroes, all of that—made him interesting. He was the god who spoke and spoke and spoke, and you never got tired of it.

  But unfortunately for my sister, he was not a god who listened.

  * * *

  THAT IS MY LAST MEMORY of my dad.

  The same day, we took him back to the airport.

  It was obvious he wasn’t welcome to come again because of Ray. He had his other life. And laws started to keep Iranians out of America—even just to visit.

  He went back to being a voice from the other side of the world who called me Khosrou.

  I wonder sometimes what his story will be.

  Why he let us go.

  Why we weren’t interesting enough or fun enough to hold close. I’m not a baby anymore. I know a stuffed sheep is just a toy. But I loved that thing so much I would have done anything to be with Mr. Sheep Sheep again.