Ode to Lata (11 page)

“Vodka,” I say quickly, before anyone notices I haven’t waited as long as the others.

“And what do want with your Vodka?”

“Rocks.”

I pay for my drink, tempted to leave the quarters on the bar, then leave the dollar instead.  The quarters will come in handy for laundry.

Roy returns to me with a fruity, grenadine-infected cocktail in his hand and takes the time to visually undress the men around him as he slinks over.  “I have it!” he declares.

“You have it?  How? Who gave it to you?”

He leans over and whispers, “The bartender, silly!”

“Him?” I ask, glancing at the one I’d been coveting.

He nods.

“I didn’t even see him give it to you!”

“Neither did anyone else.”  He winks, flashing a folded napkin at me.

“Well,” I say, “talk about one-stop shopping.”

I shake my head, amazed that these transactions have been taking place right under my nose all this time.  Even more shocking is
who
supplied Roy with the coke: the same bartender who refused to serve any more alcohol to a totally wasted queen the last time I was here.  I had been so impressed with his resilience.  So responsible.  Resisting the dollar bills that were being shelled out in an effort to secure just one more drink.

Roy tells me that I can get anything from this bartender.  Coke.  X.  Pot.  Name it.  Simply the best quality.  “Just place your order a week in advance, honey, and you can buy him too if you like.  No, wait, that only takes a few hours notice.”  Now my jaw really drops.  “Oh, come on!” he says. “Surely you’ve seen his latest ad in
Frontiers?”

How well I knew those pages at the back of the magazine, crammed with ads for “models” and “masseurs.”  They were my solace when, after an entire evening of relentlessly looking for love, I returned home feeling not like the polished man that had slaved over his appearance before stepping out but a roach, scurrying home as daylight approached.  In that state of exhaustion, when it became difficult even to masturbate, I pored over the pages of the magazine, suspecting that the reason I was such a flop as a gay man was because everyone else had turned into hookers and porno stars.  A hundred and fifty dollars.  In or out.  Top.  Bottom (very, very rarely).  Nine inches.  Twelve inches.  Rock hard.  Second available.  Will travel.  Get your intake of meat for the week.  And always twenty-nine years old or under.

As Roy leads me away from the bar, I take a last look at the bartender and wonder, how the hell am I supposed to distinguish him from anyone else in the magazine?  It’s not like they showed anything above the rippling chests and silhouettes of erect dicks throbbing through Calvin Klein underwear – faces cut out of the pictures to protect the innocent.

Back in the bathroom, we file into the line and wait impatiently for a stall.  Some of them note our sudden return with curiosity.  Others just know.  Roy launches into a manifesto about the single life.  It’s not his overrated take on the pleasures of being accountable to no one that irritates me as much as his need to preach these views to everyone around us.  I wonder what Adrian is up to, contribute a few insincere remarks and pray for the line to move faster.

Finally inside the stall, Roy unwraps the paper napkin and reveals the little plastic zipper bag.  He scoops the powder on a key and sniffs it.  First the right nostril, then a refill for the left.  He turns to me.

I pause. 
Do I really want to do this?
Booze I can just regurgitate but this I’m going to be stuck with!

But the monotony of the music and the phlegmatic attitude of men bound to their narcissism are rousing a feeling of ennui in me.  I feel a little tired.  My feet are starting to drag.  There is still a whole night ahead of me, and I know I must get by because I’m not ready to go home.  Or to the Vortex.  There is still the chance that I might be able to pick someone up without having to pay admission for it.  I feel the need for a little something to push me over the edge.  To ignite a spark for an otherwise mundane scene. 

And to top it all off, Mummy will be arriving tomorrow.

I lean toward Roy’s key to unlock the magic.

Might as well unleash tonight.

BOYFRIEND

Her British Airways flight has arrived on time.  Thank God.  Now customs.  That would take at least another hour.  I pace around the airport, my Motorola clutched in one hand and CK sunglasses in another. Objects that certify me as part of the L.A. culture.

A young man walked by, holding a single long-stemmed rose in his hand and rendering me mesmerized. He had rich, dark skin and stirring, mystical eyes.  He could have been Indian or Latino – sometimes it’s hard to tell.  His plaid shirt and baggy blue jeans embody the grunge look that I’ve never been able to get into, but those looks and that rose…irresistible.  Who was it all for?

He was obviously waiting for someone to arrive too, and they were probably in love.  My own parents had been just that young when they had met and fallen in love.  Could he be anything like my father? This is what he must have looked like when he had pursued my mother and turned her life upside down.  Was his relationship as passionate as theirs had been?  Judging from just that rose, I convinced myself that it must have been.

My eyes followed his steps until I feared losing sight of him.  Then, without giving it much thought, I found myself trailing him to a lounge bar.  Settled on a barstool, the rose placed carefully on the counter top, he ordered a tap beer.  I watched him from a bench outside the bar.  Watched him.  Fascinated.  His every gesture a testament to his masculinity.  Restraint.  Minimal.  Commanding and without animation, from his strident walk to the way in which he peeled the bills from a wad to pay for the beer.

Reminding me of the want ads that insisted upon “straight acting” contenders.  The ones that I am humiliated by yet almost exclusively find myself looking for.

What would it be like to approach this one?  Just walk up to him and smile suggestively.  The way a woman might have when suggesting a come-on.  Ask him who he was and maybe slip him my card.

How easy it must be for
them
to make such advances.  To do their little mating dance.  No risks involved.  Well, at least not any
real
danger.  At best, they plan to connect.  At worst, he’s flattered.  Or she may tell him she’s already involved and wants to be left alone.  There is no violence.  No fists to bludgeon the face.  No insults inadvertently delivered.  None taken.

Instead, I relied upon the hope of the reciprocal lingering of his glance.  That most primitive and sophisticated of senses.  Pray that if he
did
turn around, catch my gaze and hesitate before averting his eyes, his pause would not imply animosity or offense.  Or botheration.  That my nervous attempt at a smile would not be countered by a sneer deforming his lips.

Instead, looked at his back.  Ah, that back.  So much to be said about a man’s back.  To see him from an angle that was his most unassuming.  My eyes danced upon that vast land of plains and curves.  To be able to rest my head in the concave straight of his back and close my eyes and hold him from around his waist and not feel the need to be held.  Possession.

Roll fantasy.

We are not strangers.  He needs the beer to calm his nervousness of meeting Mummy for the first time.  We have been seeing each other for quite a while now.  He has brought the rose in the hope of making a good first impression.  Once he has won her over with the same charm that seduced me, he would call her “Mummy” as I do.  His warm, respectful candor and striking good looks disarm any initial hesitation on her part, quickly allaying any suspicions a mother comes armed with when protectively evaluating her child’s mate.  He insists on picking up both her bags, so I have my arms free to put around her; walks a few steps behind us, allowing us a moment of privacy to chatter away in Kutchi and not feel the need to converse in English for his benefit; escorts us to his Jeep or Blazer or one of those masculine cars where he insists she sit in the front seat (the only time he would expect me not to insist on that privilege).  She looks to me distressfully for help, and he puts the bags on the ground to help her climb up and in.

For a little while, he ignores me without meaning to, concentrates on how her flight was and tells her how eagerly he has waited to meet her.  Inside, he is still nervous.  I watch him from behind and smile to myself.

Instead, I sigh, resigned to watching his back from this bench.

He stretched his arms, tired of waiting – the flight obviously delayed – the he turned around and his eyes caught mine.  I quickly looked away, not wanting there to be any kind of contact, the spell broken.

When I looked back up at him, he had turned back toward the bar once again to sip his beer.

I grunted to myself sardonically, my fingers tracing the rim of the glasses in my hands.  I knew I had to rouse myself and look for her, just in case she had cleared through customs.  This time, I halfheartedly hoped, they did not pull her aside for questioning on contraband items.

What the hell am I doing here?  Get a fucking grip!
When I’d caught others leering at seemingly disinterested men I was nothing but disgusted and embarrassed for them.  I knew nothing about this man before and I wouldn’t ever.  He would remain an image in my mind.  Like encounters that happened in passing.  A glance or a smile exchanged in a crowded room or a bustling street.  The kind of moment that stayed with you long after it had passed.  A reminder through the daily struggle for the things that you really want but have lost sight of.

I tell myself that this man was perhaps nothing like my image of him; my fantasies based purely on his physical appearance were pure artifice.  Who cared?  Then, in settled an awareness of another deeply rooted fact: abandoning such shallow gauges and taking the time to descry qualities far more enduring was usually beyond me.  Plumage had always overshadowed virtue and I’d always be a slave to the despotism of physical appearances.

THE ARRIVAL

At five-feet-two inches, she came out of the terminal, her Dr. Scholl’s slapping up against her back heels.  I saw her long before she saw me.  She had put on some weight, and her hair was cut so short, it looked embarrassing.  Dressed like an aging mother in a beige cardigan over a nondescript cotton frock, she immediately piqued my irritation for looking so unkempt.  On one arm is slung a tacky orange handbag with an orgy of dolphins and the word “Paris” flaunted over them.  With the other hand she wheeled a large bag, burdened with handwritten nametags and a suspiciously large padlock securing what looked like the belly of an obese man suffocating under an altogether struggling belt.  In it I knew she carried, despite her initial protests, all the things that those who have left their homeland craved and manipulated any travelers into hauling across the Atlantic for them.  Months before her departure, upon catching wind of her plans to go abroad, friends and acquaintances would have come out of the woodwork to obligate her into making their not-so-little deliveries for their endeared ones.  Kenya tea and batiks and
mabuyus
and
attars
from the House of Gulab.

The suitcase followed her waywardly, like a disobedient pet, and her eyes looked around frantically for me.  From where I stood I could almost hear her tsking away and cursing at those she had conceded to.  Bhosrina Sala!  Khudda
knows why I agreed to this
matha-kuti!

Her face brightened up when she finally saw me, and abandoning the burden of her luggage, she threw her arms around me.  “Oh, Ali,” she said.  “I was so afraid you wouldn’t show up!  Thank God, you’re here!”

“Why would you think that?” I asked, my annoyance rearing.

“No, I’m just saying that, you know?”

She’s started it already.  Her games to gain sympathy.  I moved to pick up the bag – to alleviate both her and the worn wheels – but she insisted,
“Ey, nah, nah!
Don’t pick that up, Ali, it’s
too
heavy!”

“Don’t be silly, Mum.  It’s fine.”

“Why don’t you listen to me, Ali, why?  Here, let
me
take care of it!”

The wheels groaned in protest.

“For Chrissake, Mum.  Would you stop it?”

“
Haya
, fine!  It’s up to you.  You know, can’t we get someone to carry it for us?”

Erring on the side of caution, I decided to just pick up the bag rather than wheel it around and keep my mouth shut for the walk to the car.

She told me about her osteoporosis and how she’d been terribly sick for the past few months.  How she had been driving one night when she dove into a ditch and was truly fortunate to have emerged physically unscathed.

When she didn’t see a reaction befitting her expectations, she said, “But I lost one tooth!”  and opened her mouth wide and pointed into it.  I restrained from sympathizing and her litany subsided.

The entire time in the car, she prayed fanatically as if she had some premonition of how my driving is going to get us into a horrible accident.  Barely even thirty minutes and I was already losing my patience with her.