The Taqwacores (27 page)

“It’s fuckin’ punk rock,” said somebody else. “Who needs to fuckin’ sing?”

“Exactly,” said Dee Dee. “So what the shit are you talking about?”

“Brothers,” Jehangir replied, “we had some crazy songs. I
mean really, really fucked up songs. Even though we were totally sincere in our intentions—we were all fuckin’ Sufis back then—it came off as really, really fuckin’ disrespectful.”

“That’s what this whole scene’s about,” said Dee Dee.

“Yeah, and I love it. But I couldn’t do it. I’m singing shit about Islam that, if I weren’t coming from a Muslim background, you’d call an artistic Hate Crime. Seriously. I’m talking shit like the Feederz, you know, ‘Jesus Entering from the Rear.’ Shit like that but about Muhammad. When I sang, I used to get these awful fuckin’ stomachaches like a mess of open scissors jumbled up inside me. My internal organs were still submitting to Allah, you know. My own body disagreed with what I was doing.”

Neither Dee Dee Ali or I had anything to say after that.

 

 

When I finally got a turn at the bathroom I locked the door behind me, sat on the floor and beat off. I hadn’t done it at all on Friday. With my piece in my hand I imagined a petite white girl from one of my classes the previous semester. As I imagined it, I snuck into her bedroom at night real quiet so as not to wake up her parents in the next room. I sat at the edge of her bed. She half woke up and made room for me to lie down next to her. We kissed and I worked into her cute pajama top to palm her breasts—little but not pointy, they were nice and full and round and she said I could come on her if I wanted. We switched sides so I could use my right hand. My left arm under her neck, I reached around to hold a breast while I jerked. Caught just a slight glimpse down her top in the window’s moonlight but then she pulled her top up, either to afford me the whole picture or just to avoid getting semen on it. We made out while I felt her with my left and jerked with my right, and for one more stimulus I asked that she ran the tip of
her fingers along my balls. At first she complied passively but before I was done she seemed into it. When I was ready I got up and supported my weight with left hand on her headboard and I hovered above the girl, beating hard while she waited for it. First came a gob on her right breast, then a stronger one that shot too far. I aimed my penis down for lesser bombs and dozens of stray drops. A stream trickled from the arc of her ribcage down to her belly button where it formed a small pool. I said something funny. She said
don’t make me laugh. If my body shakes it’ll spill out.

Lying perfectly still in precarious balance, she sent me quick to fetch a towel from her closet. She took it and rubbed her skin hard to get it all, starting with the pool in her navel. Though it was too dark to see I knew her skin was pink where she went rough with the towel.
You got it on my neck,
she said, exaggerating her annoyance as she wiped it off and checked her hair.

Sorry, I said.

Yeah, I definitely do.

I think so. I thanked her and kissed her and snuck back out her window, beginning the long walk to wherever it was I came from lonely but refreshed and psychologically lifted.

As I imagined this sequence through the course of my self-abuse her outfits changed—sweatpants with pooh-bear on them, nightgowns, slips, sometimes just a camisole and panties, sometimes an oversized t-shirt. Scenes became disjointed. I ejaculated on her, then saw myself getting up to ejaculate. Then I ejaculated. Then I came in through the window. Then I was ejaculating on her. Then we were making out. Then I ejaculated. Then I began to masturbate. Then I woke her up. Then I had my hand in her pajama top. In some visions my semen hit her face.

When I approached real-life climax I found one image in my
mind and locked on it: the milky crescents of her breasts, pajama top pulled up to her collarbone. I got up and went to the toilet, propping myself up with a left hand on the wall, and I spunked. In the second of my last shot and the slow calm return to life that followed, I loved that girl. In real life I couldn’t even think of her name but in fantasy life I knew she was the sweetest girl in the world. Ejaculating made me stupid. I almost got metaphysical on it and wondered if our fantasies were things that really happened in parallel universes or something and maybe somewhere else far away I really had gone into her room at night.

She was the sweetest girl in the world.

I flushed.

 

 

As I came downstairs Jehangir stopped me.

“See that guy over there?” he asked, pointing at a spike-haired lunatic. “He was telling me how there’s a new wave of Taqwacore Ska starting out west. Can you believe that shit? Made me think of Rude Dawud and his old band Skallahu Akbar and how he would have loved to hear that but he’s gone to Costa Rica and missing all this. Isn’t that some sad shit, bro? The fuckin’ world, Yusef Ali. Little deaths every day.”

 

 

“D’you ever hear of Futrus?” Amazing Ayyub asked.

“No,” I replied.

“It’s some crazy shit.”

“Okay.”

“Listen to this. On the day of Imam Husain’s birth, angel Jibril was sent by Allah to congratulate the Rasul. On his way, Jibril
passed over the island where angel Futrus was spending his exile. He’d been punished by Allah for not performing a task or some shit... Allah took his wings away.

“Futrus saw Jibril and asked where he was going. Jibril replied that Rasullullah’s grandson was born. Futrus asked Jibril to take him along so that he could plead his case to the Rasul. Jibril said okay and took Futrus. When they arrived Rasullullah was holding baby Husain in his arms. Jibril congratulated him and then told the story of Futrus. Rasul was like, ‘touch my baby grandson’ and Futrus did it and his wings fuckin’ returned to him and he went back up to heaven.”

“Wow,” I said.

“And think about how that fuckin’ baby turned out.”

 

 

One of the taqwacore riot grrrls had a tattoo of angel wings on her shoulder blades. I noticed them when she led our Asr in a little top with her black bra straps showing. During the prayer I noted that we hadn’t made Zuhr. I also realized that I prayed in a state of ritual impurity from my earlier ejaculation. Afterwards Jehangir and all his bands left for the Intercontinental to set up and get wasted before the show. The house was quiet again.

I stood surrounded by food wrappers, empty beer cases, empty beer bottles, dirty clothes and improvised ashtrays. Amazing Ayyub went up to the stereo and put on his old standby.

“HEYYYYYYY LITTLE RICH BOY,” he bellowed along, “TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT ME! HEYYYYYYY LITTLE RICH BOY, TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT ME!” As Ayyub hopped around shaking his fists I suddenly felt really, really good. I had lived at that house for some time. I had made contributions to the history of the place. There was a chance that if I moved out someday,
they might remember me. Maybe when that song came on at a party Ayyub would get teary-eyed and miss the time that I was in his world.

I gave him a good-natured shoulder-tackle onto the couch. “NO YUSEF, PLEASE!” he shrieked like a nutjob. “YOU DON’T KNOW WHO HUMPED ON THIS COUCH, ARGHHHH!”

 

 

Fatima swung by, found the place empty and said she had to go to the mall, inviting me to tag along. I think it was the only time that we hung out just the two of us. She played Dashboard Confessional on the ride there.

“You should be proud,” she said with a smile. “You’re the only one in that whole house I’d let know that I listen to such shitty music.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You think the taqwacores would accept me knowing that I had a Dashboard CD?”

“You
don’t
think they would?”

“Yusef, please. I know you’re not Mr. Punk Rock, but you’ve been around these guys too long to be that naïve.” I attempted a coy laugh. The song, “Age Six Racer,” was a duet with some unnamed female. I briefly dwelled on the idea that Islam’s problem was its absence of a girl singing between the lines. Made sense in the moment.

At the mall it felt kind of cool to be seen with an attractive young woman. Other guys probably thought that we were dating. When we passed the Disney store, Fatima made a crucifix with her index fingers and hissed. If it was any of the rejects I lived with, they would have done it so loud everyone in the store could have heard it. Fatima hadn’t yet reached that level of crass confidence.

“They’re just the devil,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“The whole sweatshop thing.”

“Oh, right.”

“Just like these jerks over here—look at that, it’s disgusting. Gap, Gap Kids, Gap Body, Gap Baby, Jesus Christ—”

“And there’s Foot Locker,” I said, knowing she’d hate them too.

“Yeah, they’re great. Nike’s the worst.”

“Totally.”

“I don’t even buy clothes at malls. Mall clothes are totally not cool.”

“So why’d we come here?”

“I had to get some pictures developed.” Up ahead was the Ritz. Fatima withdrew a disposable camera from her purse and did all the necessaries while I looked at frames. For some reason as I turned around, I felt a vague sexual tension with the girl behind the counter. Perhaps she too thought Fatima was my girlfriend and this somehow made me more attractive. Sexual psychology is fascinating.

We hung out in the food court waiting for her film to develop. I got Taco Bell, Fatima went to Sbarro’s. We sat across from each other at our white plastic table in a sea of white plastic tables with attached white plastic chairs and annoying consumers all around. “I got a present for you,” she said, reaching across the table. I looked down at my paper plate and saw a small circle of pepperoni.

“I can’t.”

“It’s gooood.”

“I thought you were vegetarian.”

“I was,” she replied. “I kind of am on and off. My parents give me a lot of crap for it when I’m at home.”

“Really?”

“They say I can’t make haram things out of halal things and I’m innovating in my religion.”

“What does it have to do with religion?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well,” I said with a look at the Kennedy half-dollar of pig meat on my plate, “this is haram, anyway.” Fatima laughed.

“For all the medical reasons Muslim scholars give for not eating pork,” she replied, “we shouldn’t be eating any of this food court shit.”

“What do you mean?”

“You ever read
Fast Food Nation?”

“No.”

“You should. The whole industry is disgusting.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. Totally.” She went into it with me, how they treated the poor creatures that became our Big Macs. Made me consider going vegetarian myself, or at least buying my meat from a halal store where they kill animals by the sunna way. Islam has a whole system for slaughtering. You can’t kill an animal in front of other animals, you give it water, you point its head toward the qiblah, you make sure its calm and at peace, and you cut its throat in such a place that it no longer feels pain. Just when I’m ready to abandon religion, something like that pops up. It’s not
all
bad.

Fatima turned out to be an interesting girl. I reached the point of not even seeing her as a girl at all; she was just somebody to talk to. We went back to the Ritz a little before the hour but they had her prints done anyway. Then we left, talking about the show the whole ride back. I said something about Jehangir, I don’t remember what; but for some reason I mentioned his name, completely
forgetting
the whatever that happened between them. It shouldn’t even be an issue, I think. Maybe it should. I don’t know. She handled
it coolly but I knew there was something deep in the back of her head that was sad about Jehangir Tabari. I wondered what it was and what he did. He might not have done anything really wrong but she was so sweet and young
in that way
that he should have left her alone. Maybe they just messed around and she was such a rookie to the ways of the world that she thought it meant something to him. I knew that if I messed around with a girl like Fatima, it would have meant worlds to me. For a second I wanted to kill Jehangir.

“See you at the show,” she said pulling up to the curb.

“Definitely,” I replied, climbing out of her car. She drove away when I closed the door.

 

 

Rabeya, Fasiq and Ayyub went in my car. There was room for Umar but he insisted on taking his truck. Fasiq had a Kahane t-shirt that one of the taqwacores had given him. It was blue with a big white Star of David, inside it a blue power-fist. It was explained that the fist-in-star symbol was used by Jewish resistance fighters during World War II.

A line of Muslims and punks started at the Intercontinental’s door and wrapped around the block. We walked past them all and got in early. The floor was empty. Jehangir stood on stage messing with the microphone stand. The bands were all backstage, including, I assumed, Bilal’s Boulder. Wondered how that was going.

They opened the doors at seven and Jehangir’s dream came true. The Muslims and punks paid their four dollars, poured in, circulated, socialized, ordered drinks and took their places.

As cold as it was outside, inside it was hot enough for Amazing Ayyub to tear off his Confederate shirt and flash the big green “KARBALA” on his chest.

“YEAAAAAAH!” he screamed as he tossed his shirt somewhere. I knew he’d forget about it and leave the Intercontinental that night returning to Buffalo winter with goosebumps and hard purple nipples. Ayyub was that kind of idiot, the idiot that made you love idiots.

 

 

First band covered the Ramones’ “Rock and Roll High School” on the Intercontinental’s crumbling stage. I think they were the Zaqqums. Young Sid-Vicious-snarl-looking kid with hair like Pampero Firpo but dyed brown-red on one side and jet black on the other. Gangly frame and tight pants, leather jacket with standard spikes and some unknown band’s huge black-and-white patch safety-pinned on the back. He bounced around while a parade of homely, misshapen characters in the crowd put their arms around each other and danced in a line of lost and weary. Then a lone dude with long, straight black hair ran weaving between clusters and couples, his fist in the air and his knees kicking high. People still filtered in. Much of the floor remained visible, the shiny floor reflecting the green off a stage light. Watching the ugly punks play and born losers dance, I realized again how cool I was not.