The Taqwacores (28 page)

“You’ve never seen us here before,” spat the young Zaqqums singer into the microphone, “and you probably never will again. So if you didn’t like us, fuck you and if you did, fuck you too.” Damn right. Punk Rawk. The next band came up, a slightly different flavor with the singer wearing a necktie, calling themselves Eight from the Ukil. They only did a few songs. Then came the next band with a few songs, and another and so on. After each group played its set
they would just hop off the stage and join the pit. More than any thing these guys were
fans.
Backstage I imagined Jehangir coordinating everything and telling bands when to go on and such. The Infibulateds came out and its lead singer threw her shirt off, letting her breasts flop around. Everyone cheered. Maghrib time came and went and nobody noticed. It was strange to think that the Infibulateds’ singer and a large portion of her audience was Muslim. You just get certain concepts in your head that are hard to shake. The Ghilmans singer grabbed his bassist’s nuts right there on stage as nothing more than a Fuck You to Islamic homophobia. Those guys were Muslim too. Their drummer wore hejab. Reminded me of the burqa that Rabeya gave me. Burning Books for Cat Stevens covered “Wild World” punk-style while everyone shoved at each other in the pit. The bisexual Pathan girl singer from Gross National did her anti-WTO song and burned an American flag. The Imran Khan Experience burned an Israeli flag though its guitarist wore the Star of David. The Wilden Mukhalloduns sang anti-war anthems that got everyone going. Then Vote Hezbollah did a pro-Bush song that pissed everyone off but that was the whole point and even when the crowd booed, they had a great time doing it because they got the joke. You have to stop trying to make sense of Punk—what it’s for, what it’s against. It’s against everything. The singer from Vote Hezbollah pissed on a Qur’an. Everyone loved it. Then he picked up the kitab, shook some drips off, carefully turned the frail wet pages and recited Ya Sin with absolute sincerity. Somehow the whole thing made sense.

Then Bilal’s Boulder came out. All the bands pretty much got the same reaction when they first appeared on stage because none of these Buffalo kids could tell one taqwacore group from the next. The Bilal’s Boulder guys looked scary. Their jalabs and turbans were gone. Their heads were shaved. They went shirtless, their arms covered in tattooed Qur’anic ayats. They wore green suspenders
and combat boots. I didn’t know what was going to happen. Backstage, I was sure, Jehangir had to be nervous.

“As-salaamu alaikum,” said the singer. “We are Bilal’s Boulder, and al-hamdulilah we are happy for this opportunity to come to Buffalo, insha‘Allah subhanahu wa ta’Ala and spread the deen of Islaam. It is time for salaatul-Ishaa, so insha‘Allah we are going to pray.” Their drummer went up to the microphone and made a piercing adhan. They then jumped off the stage. The singer seemed to make calculations in his head. “This is the proper qiblah, insha’Allah,” he said, walking to the far wall. Everyone stood behind him. “Make your lines straight.” I don’t think he knew how many kafrs were standing behind him, but they all joined the salaat like they’d been doing it for years. Half the Muslims were drunk anyway. But when he said Allahu Akbar each and every last soul in the room put his or her hands to their ears. We hadn’t put any rugs down. The floor was cold and grimy and wet from snow melting off our feet. The stage lights switched up. Red, blue, yellow, green. When we sat up from our first sujdah I noticed Umar a couple of rows ahead. I was sure he loved these guys.

After the prayer Bilal’s Boulder played one song. They had spent most of their allotted time on the salat. The song was okay. The vocals were loud and hyper and nobody could tell what he was saying, so they enjoyed the empty aggression and rocked out.

 

 

After their set Bilal’s Boulder stood in the crowd. They didn’t seem too involved in any of the following bands. When slam dancers flew their way, they shoved them back and went back to the crossed-arms tough-guy stance. The Mutaweens did their song “Ahmed Deedat’s Dead” and we all laughed.

Then came One Trip Abroad. Dee Dee Ali had it, whatever
you call the it that separates born performers from the not-quites. He immediately bonded with everyone in the room, with the probable exception of Bilal’s Boulder.

“Alright kids,” said Dee Dee towards the end of their set, “you’ve been great. And we got one more treat for you, a song from the Man himself, the guy who put all this shit together... JEHANGIR TABARI!” The crowd cheered in love for the drunk. He came out from backstage and Dee Dee put a hand on his shoulder, whispered something in his ear. Jehangir shook his head. Dee Dee pleaded. Without knowing what was said, I could tell that Jehangir conceded. He said something to the band.

“Fuck this guy,” spat Jehangir, gesturing to Dee Dee Ali. Everyone laughed. “I’m so fuckin’ wasted right now.” Everyone cheered. “Okay, this song is called ’I Killed a Cat.’” Then the band jumped right into it and Jehangir covered Sid’s cover of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” Creatures in the audience slammed into each other. I could have sworn I saw a member of Bilal’s Boulder punch somebody but everything happened too fast to see. Jehangir screamed the lyrics.
And now, the end is near I and so I face the final curtain / you cunt, I’m not a queer / I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain / I’ve lived a life that’s full / and traveled each and every highway and more, much more than this /I did it my way.

I found myself in the pit getting thrown and hit every which way and I did only what I could do to avoid ending up on the floor.
Regrets, I’ve had a few / but then again, too few to mention / I did what I had to do / and saw it through without exception l I’ve planned each giant course / each careful step along the highway / and more, much more than this / I did it my way.

Jehangir looked like he belonged up there, maybe even more than Dee Dee Ali. I don’t know. Too much was going on. I could-n’ t really get more than a parting glance at him.
There were times, I’m sure you knew / when there was fuck, fuck else to do / but through
it
all,
when there was doubt
l
I shot it up or kicked it down /
I fought
them
all and
did it my way.

I saw the Infibulateds’ singer in the crowd, her tits still out, holding her own in an onslaught of rowdy slam dancers. Some guy who struck me as a storytelling punk elder shook up a beer bottle with his thumb over the hole and sprayed it everywhere. Then I saw Rabeya by the stage. Fasiq climbed up and danced around Jehangir.
Knocked
out in
bed
last night
lI’ve
had my fill, my share of looting /
and
now, the tears subside /
I find it all
so
amusing l to
think I killed
a
cat /
and
may
I say,
oh no not their way / but no, no not me
l I
did it my way.

Fasiq threw his fists in the air. I observed hard words said between Bilal’s Boulder and the Infibulateds’ singer. Then somebody knocked into me hard and I grabbed somebody to stay on my feet. He turned around and shoved me backwards into the first guy who hit me. At one point I felt like I was whitewater rafting, though I had no raft and the raging rapids were people. Rabeya was standing on the stage. I didn’t know why or when she got up there. Didn’t have time to think about it.
For what is a brat, what has he got? l he finds out that he cannot l say the things he truly feels / but only the words, not what he feels / the record shows, I’ve got no clothes / and did it my way.

 

 

The melee ended with the song. Exhausted, Jehangir’s head cocked back and his eyes aimed up at the lights. We screamed our approval. I wondered if his stomach hurt, if he had suffered for our sake.

Rabeya fell to her knees before Fasiq. From where I stood I couldn’t see her face when she lifted the niqab. She let the cloth fall back over the intersection of his penis and her mouth. Then she
bobbed back and forth with almost athletic power as the audience took a second to realize what was happening, then burst into a roar of enthusiastic disbelief. It couldn’t even register to me what I was seeing, what Rabeya was doing and where she was doing it. Fasiq beamed with the proud smile of a natural iconoclast, the giant white Star of David on his blue shirt stealing attention like a second face. Jehangir just stood there laughing with no idea what to do. Fasiq gently palmed the back of her burqa’d head as it smashed repeatedly into his pelvis, her hands braced on his hips. Somebody handed him a beer and the scene was complete: punk rocker with a Zionist t-shirt and Budweiser in his hand getting blown by a girl in full purdah while two hundred drunk punks looked on. Fasiq’s body stiffened and his smile disappeared.

“The Moment of Truth,” someone said next to me. Rabeya pulled away, Fasiq’s penis emerging from the fabric. It was pointed to the ground, slowly going flaccid, with a trail of saliva hanging from the tip. He let it hang as though yet unaware that it was time to zip up. Rabeya rose to her feet and turned to the crowd. She lifted her niqab—again I couldn’t see her face, but they did—and with a violent motion of her neck let it fly. The white ropes of semen twirled like Australian bolos in the air before landing in the direction of Bilal’s Boulder. The crowd popped. Even people standing near Bilal’s Boulder cheered though the projectile sperms could have easily hit
them.
The general reaction was that Rabeya’s onstage blowjob might have been the most Punk Rawk thing any of them had ever seen—if not the blowjob itself, the act of spitting semen at spectators.

Noticeably wary of what could happen, Jehangir started up a fast hard song that had everyone slamming into each other. Hopefully the moment would be forgotten in a thrash-riot. It wasn’t. The Bilal’s Boulder guys got mean hitting everyone around them with forearms and elbows and kicking their knees up high like the
assholes you sometimes see at shows. They were out to hurt people. One kid protested and found himself in a reverse chinlock. The band worked him over in a straight lynching. Jehangir saw it and yelled into the microphone. Bilal’s Boulder kept going. Jehangir yelled again. People around the fight made nervous attempts to pull them off. Jehangir yelled again. Then he looked at One Trip Abroad, then back at the fight, then—I could be wrong, but I swear he did—at me. And he flew off the stage right at them, plunging fast in a storm of punches and kicks and pulling and shoving, mean faces, snarling teeth, eyes both angry and scared at once, mashes of people into each other with stray arms everywhere, nobody caring anymore who they actually hit. Somebody grabbed Jehangir from behind and they all jumped on him. From the other side of the Intercontinental Umar climbed onstage, ran over and jumped in the scene. I felt as though I was watching them both drown, Jehangir and Umar, drowning in people, sinking fast under heavy boots and hands. Umar held his own, fighting Bilal’s Boulder at every side. The stage lights continued to rotate colors—they didn’t know better. Red, blue, yellow. Last time I ever saw Jehangir Tabari, he and those tearing him apart were all bathed in green. Then he was gone.

The lion of this world
seeks a prey and
provision;
the lion of the Lord
seeks freedom
and death.

—Jalaluddin Rumi

 

Early one morning I woke myself up, saw that it was still dark and rolled out of bed. Went down to the bathroom, turning on the water but not the lights. Washed my hands. My arms up to the elbows. Brought water to my nose and mouth. Washed my face and my ears. Back of the neck. Feet. Walked back to my room. Spread out a towel on the floor and stood on it with feet parallel and pointed at the Bayt. Kept my back straight. Inhaled through my mouth. Felt the air come in cool and go out warm.

“Allahu Akbar,” I said. Then I made Fajr.

It had been over a week and we still had Jehangir’s ashes in our living room. Nobody had a clue what he might have wanted for
himself. Drive out West and scatter them by the Pacific, said Umar through his teeth, his jaw still wired shut. Snort him like Stiv Bator, said Amazing Ayyub. I opened the urn once and touched them. They were harder and stronger than you’d expect, not so much ashes but little chips.

Little chips of man.

And that, in a jar, was Jehangir. Jehangir king of the shaheed stage dive. Jehangir who gave tafsirs to the drunken streets. Jehangir who’s up there with the houris in a hollowed pearl sixty miles wide. Jehangir the electric-guitar muezzin drunk and calling us all to stupor-prayer. Jehangir who took my Islam to its perihelion climax. Jehangir the rustlin’ and ramblin’ cowboy fellaheen. Jehangir star of twenty thousand unborn deens. Jehangir the champ who left us championless like Husain did on those blood-clumped Karbala sands. Jehangir whose heroes were Malcolm X and Johnny Cash. Jehangir the street-punk anarchist who pissed all over his deen but then went and died for it anyway. Jehangir who spoke Urdu, Pashtu, Punjabi, a little Farsi and six dialects of English. Jehangir the new punk laureate after Patti Smith and Jim Carroll. Jehangir the Walt Whitman Iqbal. Jehangir the skinny South Asian golden-skinned and orange-mohawked. Jehangir the walking peak of eloquence. Jehangir the living 69 between death and love, think about it like that! Death with love’s dick in his mouth and love with death’s dick too. Jehangir who went as Hollywood Hulk Hogan for Halloween. Jehangir with the scowling James Dean look, James Deen, James Deen Jihad though I’m not sure if the struggle was ever Holy or even a War. Jehangir the feminist but still a nonchalant male slut. Jehangir who wore the sad and pained story of fourteen centuries but who practiced Islam like a newborn baby would. Jehangir who drinks with Sid at the Lake-Fount. Jehangir who stole the Shah’s car. Jehangir the very last tycoon. Jehangir Oi Oi Oi, Jehangir Roots n’ Boots or Shoes n’ Booze,
Jehangir American Muslim.

When I remember Jehangir I see him in the boardslide before a marble-pillared backdrop, skateboard precisely angled on the rail, feet sharply poised, perilous stone steps on either side, arms outstretched like an effortless Apollo—I know he can ride that railing no matter how long it goes, even across oceans, even with all of us on his back.