“So you think it’s better just keeping this a secret from him and the rest of your family?”
“Not necessarily better. It’s just easier.”
A young couple walks their black lab on the sidewalk. A middle-aged man with glasses and a well-groomed beard steps out of the Panago next door carrying a steaming pizza box. Jared and I watch cars, trucks, and buses zoom by on Dundas Street.
“All these people moving about,” I say. “You think there’s some sort of plan for all of them? Ordering a pizza is part of a plan? Some entity is watching over us as we drink coffee? And if that thing is watching over us drinking coffee, protecting us from scalding our tongues, how come that thing can’t protect a kid waiting in line for bread from being dismembered by a bomb?”
Jared puts down his coffee. “Okay, what you just said. Why not tell that to your dad? Maybe he’ll at least understand why you don’t believe in God.”
“Fuck, I don’t know. I just think God and religion are so engrained in him that he can’t imagine anyone, let alone his own son, not believing in it all.” I sigh and take a sip of my hot chocolate. “Look, he’s not exactly happy with me right now. He got so worked up when I told him Jennifer was my girlfriend. He couldn’t stand the fact I was dating a non-Zoroastrian. If I told him I don’t consider myself Zoroastrian and I don’t believe in God… I just… I think it would really tear him up.”
“Hmmm,” Jared mutters.
“What?”
“No… It’s just… Do you think you’re not telling him because you want to spare his feelings, or because you don’t want to have an uncomfortable conversation?”
I slouch in my metal patio chair and slurp more hot chocolate.
*
I was raised to believe in Zoroastrianism. The religion’s tenets boil down to what pretty much every other religion wants you to believe: be a good person and you’ll be rewarded with nice things when you die. I was raised to be a Zoroastrian. As far as my family is aware, I still am one. In truth, I am an atheist. I don’t believe in God, and I’m opposed to organized religion. Not exactly what my parents had in mind for me, I’m sure.
There was no silver bullet that killed my belief in religions and deities, but there was one event that set me on the road to becoming a kafir, an Arabic term for “unbeliever” that I just love. That event was a news story on CBC’s The National that I can now only vaguely recall. The story was about an author and lifelong atheist who, while on his deathbed, steadfastly maintained his disbelief in the supernatural. He was proud of what he had accomplished during his life, and was at peace with the strong likelihood that there would be no afterlife. Who needs the promise of heaven when you can look back on your life with pride? It takes courage to accept that when life ends, it ends. No eternal existence. No paradise. No virgins awaiting your arrival in the clouds.
When I’m close to death, I want to be able to look back on my life with pride, be satisfied with what I’ve accomplished, and not fear the probability that I won’t be able to feel or think or do anything after I die.
That news story sparked my interest in a life without God, but it didn’t make me an atheist. My belief in divinity eroded over time, as my head filled with questions that no religion could adequately answer: If the universe came from a creator, who created the creator? If God is all-good and all-knowing and all-powerful, why does he/she/it allow a woman to be raped in India every twenty minutes? Why would the most powerful entity in the universe care that I face a certain direction or wear some kind of hat when I pray? How does God create and execute his “plans” for each and every one of the seven billion human beings on this planet? Why do no religious texts reference dinosaurs?
After I graduated, I began dating Jennifer, a beautiful young Catholic woman. When our relationship began, I still considered myself a Zoroastrian, but God and religion were hardly top-of-mind concerns. That is, until one evening when I told my dad I was going out to dinner with Jennifer. He dropped his head and gave a little nod. The next day, I asked my dad if I had done something to upset him.
“It’s Jennifer,” he said.
Surprised by his answer, I asked, “What about her?”
“You’re spending too much time with her,” my dad replied. “You were with her last weekend, and then again last night…”
“Yeah, that’s what couples do. They spend time with each other.” I looked away from my dad’s dour face. His long, hooked nose jutted out between his droopy eyes. The skin on his cheeks hung loose and sagged around his jaws. His thin grey hair exposed some of the scalp at the top of his head. Then I looked back. “If Jennifer was Zoroastrian, would we be having this conversation?”
My dad closed his eyes, bowed his head, pressed his wrinkled hands together as though he was about to pray, and raised them to his lips. “I just want what’s best for you.”
“And what exactly is best for me, Dad?”
“You should be with someone like us. Someone who’s decent, god-fearing, modest.”
I turned away and started walking off, then turned back to my dad and shouted, “So if I don’t marry a Zoroastrian, it’ll be the end of the world, right?”
My dad stood still, slumped forward with his eyes still closed and his hands still in prayer formation. “I just pray that you be on the right path.”
“For fuck’s sakes,” I whispered to myself before taking a step towards my dad. “Jennifer is my girlfriend, and I don’t care what her religion is. It doesn’t matter. She cares about me and I care about her, isn’t that enough? Goddammit, you know I haven’t exactly had a lot of luck with girls, and now here I finally have a great girlfriend… and… and… I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“I’m not happy.”
“Fine. Be unhappy.”
*
Jennifer accepts me as an atheist. Jared does too.
I went godless the moment he said “god-fearing”. If his beliefs make him fear retribution from an invisible man in the sky, I don’t want to share those beliefs. If his insistence on Zoroastrians only marrying Zoroastrians blinds him from his own son’s happiness, I don’t want to be a Zoroastrian.
I remember one afternoon when Jennifer and I were in the kitchen making smoothies. We chopped up bananas and strawberries, blended them with yogurt and ice, and topped off our drinks with crumbled oatmeal cookies. When my dad came home, he wouldn’t even look at us. He just mumbled something and sighed and mumbled again and walked away without even a hello to Jennifer. Class act, my father.
His archaic, small-minded acts of incivility sometimes make me think he deserves to be hurt. I should just tell him. One knockout punch: “I’m an atheist, Dad. I don’t believe in your god or your religion or any of your make-believe bullshit.” Bang! Take that!
But I don’t. Why? Why do I care about upsetting someone whose dogmatism causes him to act so coldly towards his only child’s girlfriend? Why do I keep shielding my father from the truth? Maybe it’s because I’ve already disappointed him by not being involved in the Zoroastrian community and then by falling in love with a Catholic. Maybe I just don’t want to have another difficult conversation with him. I can already picture his hangdog expression—eyes closed, head down, hands at the ready to send more prayers into the ether where they will remain unanswered. I really don’t want to have that conversation.
One day, I came close.
My dad came to pick me up from the doctor. I was late coming out, and when I eventually finished my appointment, I found my dad in the waiting room, helping someone fill out a job application. The job applicant didn’t have a good grasp of English, so he and my dad spoke in Hindi. My dad essentially filled out the job application for him.
We climbed into his SUV and he started going off about how my being held up with the doctor was somehow the result of God’s intervention.
“You always come out of your appointments on time,” he said. “If you were on time as usual, I wouldn’t have been able to help that man with his ap
plication. See that? That was God.”
I looked out the window and whispered, “Please.”
I wanted to shoot back at him. Oh, so God delayed me at a doctor’s appointment so you could help someone fill out a job application, but he won’t stop a Syrian dictator from dropping bombs on children lined up in the street for bread? What the hell, Dad? You’re so fucking special that the most powerful entity in the universe conducts the world around you in just such a way that all these nice coincidences work out? Come off it. You’re not special.
Then I think about how he did come to pick me up. How he always takes me to and from medical appointments. How he’s been a decent father. How it hurts him to see me not follow his religious example, even if that example never struck me as valuable.
He makes me so mad, but I still don’t have the guts to tell him I don’t believe. That I’m not a Zoroastrian. That I don’t want to spend my life talking to the sky and never hearing back. I don’t have the guts to face my relatives either. As obnoxiously proud as my dad is about his religion, he’s not the only one in our family. I love my family, and I’m worried they’ll look at my atheism as a slight at their whole way of life. I suppose, in a way, it is.
Maybe it’s just easier to keep my mouth shut. Sure. I’ll just practice my disbelief on my own. I’ll read Sagan and Dawkins and Hitchens and Hawking when my relatives aren’t around. And when my dad and I watch the news and hear of rapes and murders and chemical weapons being deployed, I’ll resist the urge to ask him, “Where’s your god now?”
I’m not ashamed of being a kafir. I’m ashamed I don’t fly the heathen’s flag.
Binge
(Name Withdrawn)
I march into the warm store. Two cashiers lean against the back wall. They laugh as I enter. I dive into the chips isle. Bags of family-sized chips bags line the isle; potato chips, corn chips, cheddar popcorn, vegetable straws, and rice cakes; Smartfood white cheddar popcorn, cool ranch Doritos, salt ’n’ vinegar Lays, Miss Vickie’s sea salt and cracked pepper, and cheesy Cheetos. I zoom in on a bag of jalapeno popper Ruffles. I clench the bag by its top. I cradle it in my cushy-coat-covered arms. My boots leak onto the brown tiles. I skid into the next isle of refrigerated foods: litres of whole skim milk, bags of bacon, plastic-wrapped sausages and hot dogs, luncheon meat packages of roast beef, chicken, and low sodium turkey; cubes of old cheddar, tubes of goat cheese, triangles of brie, strings of mozzarella. I grab a package of crab sticks, slices of provolone and Havarti and Gouda and Emmental Swiss cheese. I rip a pack of mozzarella sticks off the metal hanger. I place a package of crab sticks on top of my cradled chips. I turn to face the cash. Pockets of beef jerky in different sizes hang from a small stand: teriyaki, jalapeno, hot sauce, and lemon pepper. I pull the largest size of original jerky off the stand. I add it to the pile that now towers past my shoulders. The last package tickles my chin. I march towards the counter. A creamy container catches my eye in the second fridge. I slide over to the fridge and dig out a single slice of cherry cheesecake in a plastic container.
I walk up the counter, hugging the items to my chest. I dump the packages over the counter. One of the cashiers ambles up. I nod and look at the ground. I clutch my debit card.
“That’s $23.69,” the cashier says.
“Debit,” I mumble. I wave my card. I insert the chip into the machine. I punch in my PIN and the screen flashes “APPROVED”. I swipe the plastic bag off the counter and skid out of the store. As soon as the sliding doors close behind me, I reach into the plastic bag. I tear open the Ruffles bag. I claw a hand inside the bag. The salt burns my dry knuckles. I grasp two, four, six chips. I crumple them into my mouth. The edges rip at the roof of my mouth. Cheesy crumbs tumble down my cheeks. I teeter forwards on the icy sidewalk. I claw my hand back into the bag. I claw, crunch, and walk, claw, crunch, and walk. I claw, crunch, and walk all the way to my building, through the sliding doors, past the lobby, up the elevator and through my front door.
I click the lock shut behind me. I step on the backs of my boots. I drop my keys, cash, and coat on the floor. Toonies and loonies cling, clang, and scatter across the faux hardwood floor. I crumple another handful of chips in my mouth while I unzip my jeans. The skinny jeans stick around my ankles. I kick and kick until they fly across the kitchen floor.
I pick up an oversized t-shirt off the floor, stuff another handful in my mouth, and stuff the t-shirt over my head. I clamber onto the bed with my convenience store bag. My gums burn. My stomach bubbles and protests. My chest tightens. I claw another six chips out of the bag and push them into my mouth. Orange jalapeno powder dusts my cheeks and dribbles down my t-shirt. Before I swallow, I grab another handful of chips and queue my hand in front of my mouth. With my other hand, I choose an episode of Friends to stream on my laptop. I snap open the cheesecake container. The creamy top layer sticks to the top of the container and parts of rest of the slice. I place the container on the bed between myself and my laptop. I pop open the beef jerky and mozzarella packages. I place them beside the cheesecake. I bite down on the crab stick packaging and pull it away with both hands. The bag rips and the moist scent reaches my nose.
The episode opens with a scene at Central Park. A pang sears through my stomach and up to my chest. I look down. My normally flat stomach looks pregnant. I claw four pieces of jerky into my mouth. I line up a cheese stick outside my mouth before I can even swallow.
My jaw aches. I swallow cheese sticks and cheesecake without chewing. I claw through the remaining packages: chips then jerky, chips then jerky, chips then jerky. My lips crack. My mouth dries out. Every chip scrapes my gums. I waddle over to the sink and fill a plastic cup with water. I gulp, gulp, gulp and fill the cup again. My stomach expands even more, pushing from the inside out. I double over and the pain eases a little. I stay bent and shuffle back to the bed.
I curl my knees up to my chest to ease the force pushing from inside my stomach. I place the bag of Ruffles in crevice between my knees and my chest. I reach back into the bag with my whole arm. The laugh track from my computer hazes in and out. I tip the bag of jerky and cup the crumbs in one hand. I toss them into my mouth. I tip the bag of chips and cup the crumbs in the same hand. I toss those into my mouth too.
I push the empty packages off the bed. A few crumbs fly out of the Ruffles bag and scatter across the floor. I swivel my legs around and lie flat in front of the laptop. My pregnant belly feels squished under my body weight. I can’t breathe. I roll over onto my side. The pressure eases, but it’s still difficult to breathe. I close my eyes. I bring my knees up to my chest. The laugh track rises.
The Writer as Drunk Shithead
(Name Withdrawn)
Rappers pop bottles. Painters pop tubes. I pop ballpoint pens. I am a writer until I croak and will remain one after that if possible. Most rappers’ childish need to protect their craft by synthesizing every person who doubted their ability to slay a mic into the placeholders “ho” and “nigga”, as in “You see this chain, nigga?”, is my attitude to writing: I write about people I think less of and/or think less of me to try and understand who they think they are.
The Part You Can Skim Without Guilt Unless You Do It Regularly
Until I was twelve, I wanted to play in the NBA. That ended when I stopped growing at Nate Robinson and started to read for pleasure. I was decent at hoops. In fifth grade I won my neighborhood league’s championship, MVP, and scoring title after a 10–0 season. But my face was pebbled with acne, so fantasy attracted me. Goosebumps gave me thrills like the blues gives secular people religion. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time proved to my face that a book’s defining idea can surpass the crispness of the highest television resolution. No one blew me during recess. I wrote “like” next to girls’ pictures in yearbooks and imagined futures with the ones I thought looked like good people.
Besides R.L. Stine, my love of books was supple. I read the first three Harry Potter tomes, No One Writes to the Colonel, Poe, Hol
es, suffered through and recovered from a failed attempt at Gone With the Wind, hoarded Roald Dahl in droves, and devoured abridged biographies of the juniors Ken Griffey and Cal Ripken before such shortened works would seem to me the greatest of all publishing sins. In fifth grade (a good year) I read in an accelerated reader program. Sitting at an orange iMac in homeroom, I took multiple choice tests on the books I wanted and accumulated points that 1) went toward my final grade in Ms. White’s English class and 2) could be redeemed for prizes like free bowling games, school supplies, and candy.1 It was a reward system meant to trick tykes into flipping pages and I owe it my sense of existential direction. Come summertime, I finished fifth overall in primary school and beaming, not by bragging, but internally. I wouldn’t say I was confident, because you have to know who you are to be confident, more assured that reading was okay to continue to do no matter what anybody said.
My earliest cramp of writing-related pleasure happened eighteen months later during the guitar lessons when I wrote my first song. The connection between reading books and writing music and lyrics was having an idea while tapping a foot while being unable to let it dissipate into the numbing embrace of a chubbier Carson Daly on TRL. Calluses hardening, tastes coalescing, I awakened to all the music I still hadn’t listened to and tried to replicate it. The Backstreet Boys had my attention; so did the Bee Gees and Sepultura. I read tablatures constantly, learned from them, stole from them, and filled seven or eight notebooks over the next couple of years with hits like this one:
Gingivitis, and gum disease,
Diarrhea, I’m weak in the knees,
Give me an Imodium
To wash away the pressure and the pain.
Record Three: Shame Page 4
