The Taqwacores (19 page)

“Burroughs got big on Hassan bin Sabbah, mystic leader of the Mushashins back in medieval times. Hassan bin Sabbah’s famous line was, ‘nothing is true; everything is permitted.’”

“They didn’t teach me
that
in Muslim summer camp,” said Fatima.

“And Imam Burroughs,” said Fasiq—“what else did he say?”

“He said that Muhammad was an invention of the Mecca Chamber of Commerce.”

“Hey Muzammil,” said Jehangir, “are you looking for a place to stay? Rude Dawud’s movin’ out of here next month, so we’ll have a room open.”

“Oh, no thanks. My parents said I should stay in the dorms this semester, to stay focused on my schoolwork; I don’t think they really know what dorms are like.”

“That’s cool,” said Jehangir.

“My parents wanted me
out
of the dorms,” I interjected, “to save my deen.”

“Parents are kind of funny,” said Muzammil.

“And uncles too,” added Fatima. “Except when they’d kill you.”

“Your uncles would kill you?” asked Jehangir with a quick swivel of his head. “For what?” She looked at him as though he more than anyone should have known the answer. “Oh,” he said. “So they’d really kill you?”

“They’re the real deal,” she answered. “And I’m a disgrace.”

“That’s crazy,” said Jehangir.

“Yep,” Fatima calmly replied. “If I ever have kids, I don’t think I’ll teach them about religion.”

“Really?” I exclaimed. “But it’s your culture, who you are—”

“There’s more to my heritage than thinking it imitates the devil to eat with your left hand. That’s not where I get my cultural identity.”

“But aren’t you Muslim?” I asked.

“Sure I am. But my kids don’t need to be.”

“I’d just give my kid a Qur’an,” said Fasiq, “and then send him on his way. Go find your own truth, you know?”

“I don’t need my kids saying Allahu Akbar’ when they pray,” said Rabeya. “That works for me, and I would teach it to them so they know me and who I am and where they’re coming from. But if they found something else, cool.”

“I want my kids to be smart,” said Muzammil. I admit that it took me a second to remember that homosexuals do raise families. “If I was ever a father I’d take my kid to every kind of temple, real early on. By the time he or she was eight years old they’d have been to a masjid, a church, a synagogue, a Buddhist temple, a Sikh gurudwara, whatever we could find. I want a worldly child. By second or third grade my son-slash-daughter will have more appreciation for diversity and the beliefs of others than most adults.”

“I believe in teaching my children Islam,” I offered. “Just as Pakistan is part of their heritage, so is our religion. You can’t separate
it. I don’t know how strict I’ll be; maybe we’ll just go to the masjid for Eids and that’s it. I doubt we’d pray five times a day, though we wouldn’t admit that outside the house. I don’t know how I’d be if I had a daughter who wanted to go to the prom, and things like that... or if my son came home drunk one night. But my own values are constantly changing, so it’s hard to say. I honestly have no idea but I have a nice little image in my head of what Islam can be for them.”

During the brief silence that followed, I realized that Jehangir had said nothing on the topic. I looked at him. He was looking at his hands. It were as though he knew the question would never apply to him.

 

 

Though Umar was not up on the roof, I imagined what he would have said. He had once told me the story of a man who raised his son to have no knowledge of Islam. Nearing his thirtieth birthday, the son was involved in a horrible car accident. The man rushed to the hospital, only to hear that his son would not survive. At his son’s deathbed the man cried that he would pray for him.

“You should not pray for me,” the dying son replied, “but for yourself. Because you did not teach me Islam when I was a child, the punishments for all my missed prayers and fasts will fall upon
you
. The punishments for my drinking alcohol and mixing with girls will fall upon
you
. The rewards I missed for not saying ‘la ilaha illa Allah’ will be extracted from
your
baraqa.”

 

 

The next day Jehangir, Muzammil, Fasiq and I met up with Amazing Ayyub at a gas station. With Muzammil, Fasiq and Ayyub
crammed tight in the back seat we headed to the mall. Ayyub still had on his Confederate flag t-shirt.

Punks in a mall—when they’re not snotty mall-punks, of course—can be a fun time. Fasiq and Ayyub did their old stunt where Ayyub pretended to be a mental patient and Fasiq his good-hearted care staff. Ayyub ran into stores slapping his head, hollering, careening into merchandise displays and Fasiq would just take him by the arm, and coddle him with a gentle voice while store clerks stood frozen not knowing what the hell they could do. Jehangir had gotten a little vial of stinking prank-perfume and would bring it into the uppity stores—Kaufman’s, Bon-Ton and the like—all prim to the customer-service people—“yes, um, I was wondering if you had this scent... I can’t find it anywhere, but I just love it so much—” and watch their reactions when he twisted the cap and had them smell. Neither Fasiq or Jehangir, of course, had dressed their parts. I doubt anyone took us seriously, but at any rate our crew made a great deal of people uncomfortable so it was at least fun for that. Amazing Ayyub whipped out his Mexican wrestling mask, put it on, ran into an AAA office, stuffed three brochures into his mouth, made a weird animal noise, hopped around and ran out while we all stood twenty feet from the place laughing our asses off. Though I never did anything to entertain the group, just being with them made me feel like one of
the cool guys.

“No good can come out of this,” said Jehangir as Amazing Ayyub made a beeline for Victoria’s Secret and we followed. The attractive young lady out in front holding a bottle of perfume for passersby to sample looked the other way. “I guess we don’t look the type to have girlfriends,” Jehangir observed.

“Maybe she was afraid you’d share
your
perfume with her,” I replied.

“MY COCK WEIGHS TEN POUNDS RIGHT NOW!” bellowed Amazing Ayyub at us from the opposite side of the store,
gripping a flowered red slip on its hanger. I heard a crash and laughter and turned around to see the tail-end of Jehangir shoulder-tackling Fasiq. With that we all ran out of the store.

“Where’s Muzammil?” Fasiq asked.

“I think he’s still in there,” said Jehangir. We waited. Muzammil came out with a pink-and-white-striped plastic bag.

“I bought a catalog,” he said. Figuring either Muzammil dragged or was having sex with a guy who did, we let the topic die fast.

We walked around some more, bought pizza (to go) at the food court, pushed Ayyub into a fountain and left for fear that it was only a matter of time before someone called security. Soaking-wet Ayyub took the front passenger seat. As we pulled out of the parking lot, he rolled down the window and whipped his pizza at a stationary station-wagon. The slice plopped and stayed, cheese-side down, on the victim’s windshield.

“Get out of here quick!” I shrieked to Jehangir, immediately embarrassed that there was no avoiding my role as the group’s relentless nerd. Jehangir blended into traffic and our escape was complete, Blanks 77’s “I Wanna be a Punk” providing the perfectly anthemic but aggressive soundtrack.

“Put on Sham 69,” said Amazing Ayyub.

“Don’t,” I replied, knowing he only wanted to sing me his rich-boy song.

“Is it Asr time?” asked Fasiq.

“Probably,” said Jehangir.

“Do you want to pray?”

“Sure.”

We dropped off Amazing Ayyub at the City Mission, or Camp Fun as he called it, and headed home. Umar and Rabeya were there and said they’d join the jamaat; but when Jehangir invited Muzammil to lead, Umar suddenly remembered that he
had already made Asr.

After the prayer, Jehangir cupped his hands du’a-style and said, “my Beloved shits Truth, but intellect is a can of Lysol by the toilet.”

“What the hell is that?” asked Fasiq.

“I think Rumi said it,” Jehangir replied. “Shit, shit, I know a guy who doesn’t even defecate anymore and he’s prayed with the same wudhu for ten years. I guess he doesn’t sleep either. Me, I sleep. And I fart. I eat Taco Bell which wrecks me and I fart out zikrs. Thirty-three al-hamdulilahs, thirty-three subhana‘Allahs, thirty-four Allahu Akbars. Phbbbbbbbbt! Phbbbbbbbbbbbt! You know what I said just there? La ilaha illa Huwal’Hayyul Qayyum!” I went upstairs and flopped out on my bed. Within twenty minutes Muzammil appeared in my doorway.

“Here you go,” he said, underhand-tossing me the pink-and-white Victoria’s Secret bag. I took out the catalog.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“It’s for you.”

“For me?” I asked with raised eyebrows.

“Rabeya said you could use it.”

“For what?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Baby steps, brother. They’re not naked, so at least you won’t be confronted with a gaping snatch yet... but at the same time, their faces haven’t been airbrushed out.”

“So wait; I’m supposed to... self-abuse with this?”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘abuse,’ Yusef. Have fun.” He closed the door and I heard his footsteps heading toward the stairs.

There I was. In my closet a woman’s burqa, which its owner expected me to wear in public. In my hands what would become my first masturbatory material, purchased for me by a gay man. Both the burqa’s owner and the gay man were Muslims. I think.

 

 

I wondered what was happening downstairs. Maybe Jehangir was still talking about the holiness of his farts. Maybe Fasiq was on his way upstairs to smoke pot on the roof and would walk by my room with my door closed. Rude Dawud would soon move to Costa Rica, a few weeks or so. I wondered how that would all play out and what he would do down there. He hadn’t been around much lately, always with his adopted reggae/ska scene. I wondered if anyone downstairs besides Muzammil and Rabeya knew that I was alone with the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Maybe everyone was outside my door with cups to their ears. I wasn’t really going to jerk off, was I? I went to the door and stood silently behind it. Then I swung it open. Nothing. My penis was hard and sticking out.

 

 

At first I did it clumsily, moving my whole body. I soon discovered it was easier just to move my hand. Then it got good but I stopped once to make sure I had locked the door. I took my shirt off; I don’t know why but it just seemed proper. I listened for sounds in the hallway. They had some beautiful girls in that catalog. I focused on one who reappeared page after page in different poses and pouts and bras. She had big breasts and a face that could pull off all the desired moods. On one page she cast her face down and rolled her eyes up, as though looking at me from below. On the next she wore cute pajamas and gave a sweet smile. As I flipped through the book I kept looking for her. She posed topless lying on her stomach, showing off the panties; or on her knees giving you the bird’s-eye view of her bra. As my passion accelerated I
snatched quick glances of details around my room as a whitewater rafter might notice a rock or tree in that split-second the rapids whisk him by. I saw my alarm clock with robotic red digital numbers but didn’t even notice what the time was. I saw the color of my walls. I saw my desk and computer. My Pakistani flag. Mustafa’s old Bukharis. The thought occurred to me that Mustafa may never have ejaculated in this room, for all the time he had it. Before I could really consider it the thought was gone, left behind with everything else. I felt a tremor in my body I had never known before, surprised that it wasn’t centralized in my penis but seemed to just jolt through my torso. I went faster. My eyes locked on the girl’s eyes and we just stared at each other. Then my eyes wandered to her shoulder and a single green bra strap. Round breasts. Shadow of cleavage. Her stomach. Little waist. Panties. Breasts again. Bra. Lips. Her eyes like she was looking at me. Like she knew. Like she wanted it. We were together. I wanted to fuck her. I
did
fuck her. She was my hand with a face. A sweet face, smiling like this was cute and not at all dirty. I fucked my hand and fucked it faster like I was raping myself. Tits. Cunt. Fuck. Lynn. Lynn’s tits in my hands. Her blue bra that was still in my room somewhere. The load surging inside me, building to launch. I squeezed tighter and jacked and jacked and fucked myself until it came out and then it
really
came out, the second blast like a shotgun arcing high and landing on my chest. I kept going, feeling the hot first shot gliding down my furious pumping hand. More came. An endless barrage of little shots, castaway drops scattering here and there. My fist slowed down. Inside I felt dizzy but clear and warm but numb, charged but relaxed with perfect precision: a buzzing calm if that makes any sense. I felt like all that semen had once been inside my skull, coating my brain with a thick skin of baby batter slowing down the synapses and now I had gotten it all out. I was free and clean and too at peace to care about the sticky mess all over me,
the clean-up only becoming more of a future nuisance as I lay there allowing my sperm to gel and dry and turn into crust in my pubic hair. I looked at it intently. Liquid, but not quite a liquid. Off-white puddles with texture. It seemed to freeze my hand in its perverted claw-hold pose. It was gross. I had known it before but only in my sleep. With my clear and empty head I thought strange things. Strange that if the woman was a real woman and not just a sheet of paper with ink on it, we could have turned those drops and gobs into a whole new human being. Strange that she might have swallowed it. People swallow potential people. Isn’t that weird? But I think I would have liked her to do that. Is that weird too? Then it occurred to me that when a man masturbates, he plays the role of the vagina. Because he’s not moving his body, having sex with the hand as I had initially done; he’s moving his hand, having sex with the penis. So the active role a man plays is that of the woman. The woman—the hand—is dominant. At the very least he is both, because it is still his penis. My heart slowly returning to its normal rate, and all the facts of the world crawling back into my brain, I felt stupid and got up, grabbed a towel, scrubbed my body hard to get it off and left marks where the semen had been. I got dressed, grabbed another towel and headed to the bathroom for a shower.