The Anomalies (10 page)

Everything back to normal is comfortable. Back where I belong is good for my health. No more punchings, beatings, and shootings. Peace!

I’m looking similar to other Iraqis and treated the same. Got my routine down and no more surprises. But I still get a feeling when I pull up to my house. I guess the opposite feeling of how I felt that night before I went on stage those months and months ago. But no more of that. The future is what’s for dinner.

After another day of work at the sandal factory, I walk in the house to see the wife kitchened, bunned up, and aproned, making our house smell like home.

“Hey, honey. How was the work today?” she asks, tongued Arabically.

“Eh, shitty as usual,” I answer. Also tongued Arabically.

We got a stable dinner table. Still the fighting, but not as big. Aymon is behaving and toning back down his clothings. Not so funky now.

Fork, knife, spoon, shut up. Can’t stand the silence, so I break it.

“Aymon, how was school today?”

“I still hate it. Nobody likes my kind of music. Nobody understands me.”

His talk reminds me of Aurora, who won’t write me back.

“Things will get better,” says the wife. “You are at an awkward age. Soon you will grow a beard, and life will become less confusing.”

Milkah might be right. Once I got back here and regrew the beard, life did become less confusing. I want to add on to the support by showing my son he is not alone.

“Don’t feel bad, Aymon. I have been experiencing a similar situation at my work. I make mix tapes of rock music for peers. When I ask them if they like what they hear, they pretend like they don’t hear me or even leave the room.”

Aymon nods. “Yeah, it’s like, nobody here gets it, you know what I am saying?”

“I know what you are saying,” I reply.

“Fine! Both of you can go back to America with the infidels and get shot at!” shouts the wife. She won’t let me forget that I left a nut in America. She runs away from the table. I try to stop her.

“But, dear, I left it all behind to be with you! Dear—Ahh, screw it.”

This happens every once in a few, usually when we talk about U.S.A. things. She gets over it after a few minutes of alone time. Aymon and I keep eating.

“Father, do you miss America?”

I think fatherily with thought before answering.

“I miss my friends. But they were not your typical Americans. They didn’t shoot me. Do you miss America?”

“Yes. I miss playing music with my friends.”

“Me too.”

I write these friends of mine but never get written back to. I don’t understand. Maybe they think I should’ve stayed. But what I had to do I had to do I had to do. After what happened, Milkah felt for me. She was willing to take me back. I knew it was time to return. Besides, the way things were heading, the band could be no more with or without a Ray Fuquay.

“And I miss the girls who were allowed to wear such slutty clothes,” continues Aymon.

“Oh, yes! Slutty clothes!” I didn’t want to show him this, but I can’t resist. I raise up my boring cream-colored shirt to reveal my Budweiser halter-top underneath. “Don’t tell your mother!”

“I won’t.” He is proud of me. I can see it in his eyebrows.

“Ooh! Do you know what else I miss?” I ask. “The language. I was just getting the hang of it before I left.”

I’m going to do something I haven’t done in a very long while. I’m going to switch back to English.

“I wonder if I can still speak English.”

“You can!” says Aymon in English. “Hey! I can too!”

“I remember when Luster was helping me with English. He said the worst mistake I could make in speaking the language was starting a sentence with—what was it? …Ah yes…‘With all due respect’ or ‘Could you do me a favor?’”

We share laughter.

“I wish I could’ve met your friends,” says Aymon.

“I do too.”

My wife reminds us this is an Arabic household when she shrieks from her bedroom, “What’s that I hear you speaking in there?!”

“Nothing, dear! Come and eat with us!” I say Arabically.

I hear her coming back, but I need to say a little more English to my son. I know this will be the last time I get to speak the crazy language for a while. So I try to make it something good. I lean in closer to him and whisper.

“Remember, you can always think in English. No one would ever know. Besides, nobody ever says the words in their heads anyway.”

I hope where Ember is they’ll let her watch the TV. She would be so proud of me. Jenny Jones was always her favorite. She always said she loved to hate the people that came on there, but surely she wouldn’t feel that way about me. Luster wouldn’t be proud of me, though. He used to say that for the average Kentuckian, appearing on a talk show is the summit of human potential. I guess it’s downhill for me from here on out.

The first segment went fairly well. I wish they wouldn’t have booed Chuck, but I’m thinking the flashing sign up there told them to. Jenny (or Jenny’s writers, I reckon) kind of made him out to be some type of villain taking advantage of a sweet little old lady. Dumb-asses. Then they brought out Chuck’s daughter from his first marriage. She bitched at both of us, saying how abnormal our relationship was. But I told her she had better shut the fuck up or kiss my ass one, ’cause we’re taking care of her baby while she’s screwing around in junior high.

The commercial break ends and Jenny gets her cue.

“Hi. We’re back talking to Chuck and Opal, a newlywed couple who claim to have a deep love for each other despite the fact that he’s twenty-nine and she’s eighty-one. We have time for a few questions from the audience.”

She goes over to hold the microphone to the big mouth of a big woman.

“This question goes to the long-haired, bearded dude.”

“That’s Chuck,” says Jenny.

“Right. This question is for Chuck. Get a life. She’s not active like you are. Get someone else.”

I say, “By God, listen here, you big-popoed hoochie,” but
Chuck grabs my thigh with authority and interrupts my butt.

“Let me tell you something, she is active. I have loved a whole lot o’ women, but there ain’t nothin like ridin down the highway about 90 miles an hour with this woman on the back of my scooter.”

The audience laughs, and Chuck takes my hand and gives it a love squeeze. The next question comes from a big fat black lady.

“This question is also for Chuck. That is the only mother you’re ever gonna have. You should love your mother.”

“That doesn’t apply at all to this situation,” says Jenny. “Opal and Chuck are husband and wife.”

“Oh, well, in that case, you should date people your own age. That’s just weird.”

“Hey now!” says Chuck, but this time there’s no stopping me. I interrupt him.

“Listen, woman. Eat me, and while you’re at it, eat shit and die, fuck-wad.” The censors are gonna have to beep the fuck out of me.

“Secondly, there’s no pleasing you people. All my life people have been asking me, ‘Why don’t you get married?,’ ‘Why do you want to be an old maid?,’ ‘Why do you have so many sex toys in your old age?’ Well, here I am. I’ve finally settled down and married. I even got a granddaughter I take care of for that little slut.” I point to Chuck’s daughter, Cheyenne.

“Sure Chuck’s young, and I’m old, but is it impossible for y’all to believe that we could be happy? In all that’s happened in this world, couldn’t something as little as that be possible? Can’t y’all get past it? Well, if you can’t, y’all just wait ’til you’re this old, and you’ll be past everything. Besides, look at him. Can you blame me?”

Chuck instinctively knows that he’s been cued to stand up and shake his fanny for the crowd. He’s got on his painted-on jeans, Metallica T-shirt, and a blue jean vest, and the ladies yell “Woo!” when they catch a glimpse of his perfect duff.

“That ain’t for y’all,” he says. “That’s for her. That’s all hers.”

“So Opal, is Chuck just a sex object to you?” asks Jenny.

“More like she’s my sex object,” says Chuck. After the audience is done groaning, I answer Jenny’s question.

“No, Jenny. I mean, sure, he rattles my bones and he’s got a great backside, but he’s more than just a sex object. He’s kind of like my savior.”

These are the people I will never be able to thank enough:

My mother, Nancy, and my sister, CeCe, who know me better than anyone ever will and still love me. I want you both to be happy more than anything.

Pat Walsh, who has taken the risk of believing in me, as well as David Poindexter and everyone else who plays on the MacAdam/Cage softball team with me.

Michael Bruner, the Dillinghams, the Walkers, and Rene and John for the love, generosity, and encouragement they’ve shown my family and me for so long.

All of my teachers, especially those English teachers by the names of Craig Barrette, David Bartholomy, Vicki Combs, Ellen Dugan-Barrette, and Susie Thurman.

And all of those who I grew up with in Henderson, Kentucky, who have laughed with me, and especially those who have laughed at me.