The Taqwacores (8 page)

“Didn’t know he had a car,” I said.

“Yeah, he used to live in it; it was his house. We used to play the UK Subs’ ‘I Live in a Car’ and say it was his theme song. Shit, miss those days. But anyway, one day he just up and says ‘Jehangir, I’m going West, I’m going to see California and all the taqwacores and turn the deen on its head’ and he gets in his car and heads for the 1-90 and we all thought that was the end of him. A week or so later I got a call. He was at the bus station downtown.”

“What happened?”

“For some reason he decided to get off the 1-90 in Montana and hop on the 1-25 to Colorado. Shit broke down on the way so he took a bus back to Buffalo and crashed at our place. Him and Fasiq have been fighting over the better couch ever since.”

“Why’d he get off the 90?” I asked.

“Who knows,” Jehangir replied. “But it’s Amazing Ayyub, you know? Nothing makes sense with that guy. He’s a homeless, probably now jobless bum who makes an ass-clown of himself but it works for him. He can wipe his ass with just his bare hand and girls would say ’wow, he’s so interesting, so unique!”

“How do you think he would have done out there in California?” I asked. “You know, with the taqwacores?”

“They would have eaten him up, bro. He could have been the next big thing out there.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s Amazing Ayyub! Look at ’im. He’d be the Taqwacore Mahdi.”

Rabeya occupied the porch recliner when we got home, burqa’d up as per usual. “Salaam alaik,” said Jehangir as we walked towards the house.

“Wa alaik,” Rabeya replied. She had an open bag of marshmallows in her lap.

“Amazing Ayyub fuckin’ spit on some jocks and deserted his job.”

“Jesus,” sighed Rabeya, weary and free of surprise. “Oh, Yusef—I almost forgot, when you guys were out Lynn came through looking for you.”

“Really?”

“Like him, specifically?” Jehangir asked.

“Him, specifically,” Rabeya replied, taking a marshmallow and slipping it under her niqab.

“Did she say what she wanted?” I asked.

“Just said to give her a call,” she replied while chewing.

“That’s cool.”

“I think it’s time for prayer,” said Jehangir.

“Which one?” I asked.

“Zuhr, I think.” He looked up at the sun. “Anybody got a watch?”

“It’s Asr time,” said Rabeya.

“Oh. Shit, if I fall asleep wake me for Maghrib.” With that Jehangir went inside. Through the screen door I watched him go upstairs. Rabeya took another marshmallow and put it up to her hidden mouth.

“Did you know,” I said, standing by the recliner, “supposedly—I don’t know, I guess they say that, um, marshmallows are made with pork gelatin?”

She leaned over and punched me hard in the stomach.

Amazing Ayyub came home and said he didn’t know if he still had a job because he never made it back to the gas station. Mentioned some upcoming medical experiments he could sell his body to for quick cash.

The sun went down. I made the du’a my father had taught me. Jehangir was knocked out in his room; I’d wait to hear his input before calling Lynn.

Sayyed had given us a prayer timetable from the local masjid to stick up on our refrigerator. When Maghrib came I went up the stairs, first to Rude Dawud’s room on my immediate left. I knocked, then opened the door to see Albert standing tall waving his arms around and preaching rapidly on Babylon as Dawud sat at his desk.

“Rude Dawud,” I said, “man, it’s time to pray.”

“I’ll be right down, brother.”

From there I went to Umar’s room and knocked. He opened the door with salaams.

“Wa-alaikum as-salaam,” I returned. “Time for Maghrib.”

“Al-hamdulilah, brother.” The Kashmir and Jammu flag hung in the distance behind Umar’s right shoulder.

And then to Jehangir.

Knocked once, no answer. Knocked twice. Knocked three times. “That’s the sunna,” said Umar behind me. “Knock three times, that’s it.” Umar went to the bathroom to make his wudhu. I opened Jehangir’s door and went in.

First thing I saw was Jehangir on his stomach, sprawled across the bed. The second thing was a three-by-five American flag on the wall behind him, right next to a cloth wall-hanging of the Masjid Haram in Makkah. Then there were the assorted expecteds: Sid Vicious poster, fliers for taqwacore shows he had collected out West, tacked-up photos of old and new friends all jumbled together in a jamaat that couldn’t happen on this earth because Jehangir
had traveled so much, the characters of his story were spread out too far and wide.

“Yo,” I said. “Time to pray.”

“I had a dream I was drinking with Johnny Cash,” he said, his head hanging off the far side of the bed.

“Really.”

“Yeah bro.” He heaved himself up to a sitting position and I noticed his mohawk had been bent out of shape by sleeping. “You ever listen to Johnny Cash?” The question threw me off.

“I don’t listen to country,” I said, thinking that was the cool answer.

“Johnny Cash isn’t country,” Jehangir snapped. “He’s bigger than country. Johnny Cash is the fucking SHIT, man. Johnny Cash rules the world.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“If you don’t know, now you know.”

“So what was the dream about?”

“We were in the bar that ‘A Boy Named Sue’ took place in. You know, the saloon where he finds his dad and they fight all over the place, breakin’ chairs and smashin’ through walls. We just sat on a pair of stools downing shots and laughing and I just wished I could be him, you know... I wanted to be Johnny Cash more than anything, just sitting next to him and he was so fucking
old
and withered you could see ten thousand years of pain and life on his face... and even when we laughed and sang songs I was hurting on the inside because I wanted to be him so bad, a fuckin’ Everyman Baritone Populist, fuckin’ beyond Time and Place. I can’t be that guy, you know, who just speaks to
everyone..
. I’m too wrapped up in my mix-matching of disenfranchised subcultures.”

“Damn,” I said.

“I’m small,” said Jehangir. “I’m fuckin’ small.”

“Your name means ‘World Conqueror,’ doesn’t it?”

“Something like that. I’m named after a fuckin’ Mughal king.”

“I know.”

“His son built the Taj Mahal.”

“Yep.”

“Look at that shit,” he said, pointing to a small picture on his wall. I walked over to see it and found Jehangir, face a little younger and head concealed in turban, wearing a shalwar kameez in front of the Taj Mahal next to an older man in matching outfit besides his Jinnah hat.

“That’s awesome,” I said.

“See how my turban’s wrapped?” he asked. I looked closer. “I had never worn one before and had no idea what I was doing. I fuckin’ wrapped it Sikh-style.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah—”

“I just wanted to cover up my hawk, you know, I didn’t know there was a Sikh way and a Muslim way.”

“Who’s that in the Jinnah?”

“That’s my uncle.” I stared closer, tried to see the Jehangir-ness in him.

“Were you really close?” I asked.

“Yeah—I mean he wasn’t around all the time, he traveled a lot but I did get to see some of the world because of him.”

“That’s cool.”

“He took me to Makkah.”

“Really?”

“I don’t have any pictures of it because you know how they are over there.” I tried to picture Jehangir in the
ihram
garb with his orange mohawk standing tall.

“How was it over there?”

“Brother,” he said with each facial muscle striving to convey his conviction, “it’s unbelievable. That’s all I can say. I don’t even know how to explain it. You don’t even have thoughts there that
can possibly be expressed in language.”

“Wow,” I said.

“You know how in those photographs it looks like the people nearest the Ka’ba are kind of swirling around?”

“Yeah.”

“It really feels like that.”

“Wow, you were that close?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Did you touch it?”

“No, once you’re that close people start crawling all over each other, it looks like a bunkhouse brawl. I figured if I moved out of the way and let somebody else get their blessing, maybe I got baraka too.”

“That makes sense.”

“I hope so.”

I left him and went down the hall, into the bathroom where out the open window I saw Fasiq sitting on the roof, Qur’an in hand.

“As-salaamu alaikum,” I said from the bathroom.

“Wa-alaikum as-salaam,” he slowly replied.

Then Umar’s adhan filled the house.

Albert sat on a couch as we lined up in front of the hole in the wall, Saudi’s spray-painted flag and Imam Rabeya. Umar gave the iqamah. With a look down at his feet right of mine I wondered why in all his anal sunna he would pray behind a woman. Jehangir stood on my left. On Umar’s right stood Amazing Ayyub. On Jehangir’s left was Fasiq Abasa. On Ayyub’s right stood Rude Dawud.

“Allahu Akbar,” said Rabeya, hands to covered ears. Then came a brief silence, followed by
Fatiha
and
al-Kauthar,
shortest sura in the whole Qur’an. It’s about a pond or river in Paradise where Muhammad’s supposedly going to meet all of us. As she recited I was sure Amazing Ayyub had a store of hadiths about it
from his Muslim death book.

I almost forgot:
sallallaho alayhe wa salaam
.

After completion of the fard, Umar shuffled back to a corner of the room and did two sunna rakats. Jehangir just let himself lean back until he was lying down with feet to the qiblah. Everybody else got up except Rabeya, who sat in silent du’a, and me, who just kind of sat. I thought about a few things, thought about nothing, looked over at Jehangir, looked back at Umar, looked at Rabeya, looked at Albert getting up from the couch to go back upstairs with Rude Dawud, looked at Amazing Ayyub when he said he had to piss and Fasiq Abasa when he walked towards the kitchen.

Umar ran his hands over his face, stood up and left the living room. Rabeya got up after awhile, leaving me still sitting and Jehangir flat on his back staring at the ceiling.

“Do you think I should call Lynn?” I asked without looking at him.

“Why shouldn’t you call her?” he replied, still looking to the ceiling.

“I don’t know.”

“See what she wants.”

“Okay.” I stood up and left him there. Went to my room, looked up her number in my planner—never knew her well enough to memorize it.

“Hello?”

“Lynn?”

“Hey.”

“It’s Yusef Ali.”

“Oh hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing much, I just heard that you came through today and said to call you—”

“Oh yeah, I was just wondering how you did on your finals.”

“I think I did pretty good, actually.”

“Cool, cool. I could have done better than I did, but I’m just glad to be done with it for a few months.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“So are you guys still having jumaa over there at the house?”

“Yep.”

“Cool... I think I might make an appearance one of these days.”

“Really?” I asked with overexcitement.

“Yeah, I haven’t been to a jumaa in forever... not going to go back to my old masjid anytime soon.”

“I hear that.”

“So I guess I’ll see you... this Friday?”

“Insha’Allah,” I replied.

“Cool... talk to you later.” Did I have a jumaa date?

 

 

Jehangir Tabari had a way with girls. Sometimes the deen even helped his efforts. He could get a girl alone, run his usual game with spirited tone and raised eyebrows—“you know, Prophet Muhammad said that when a man and woman are alone together, Shaytan is the third present but I never understood that... to me, Allah has put all of us here to learn from one another and grow with one another, and to avoid an entire gender like that just seems to be limiting your growth and almost—no, definitely—denying one of Allah’s favors...” and more often than not he had it. I never doubted Jehangir’s sincerity—he honestly, deeply meant every word he said—but I must confess he knew such monologues would win him sexual attention.

His Islamic angle seemed to work best with kafr girls because they usually did not know enough about the religion or culture to feel anything but intrigue and sympathy for his struggles. Muslim
girls were generally no fun anyways, he explained, programmed from birth to have no sexual impulses. Rabeya supported his thinking.

“I spent my whole life hearing that it was my job not to tempt men,” she told me at the kitchen table. “If you ask Muslim women why they cover up, ninety-nine percent of them will say it’s to avoid arousing men. Fuck that, where’s your self-accountability?” I saw the moment as an opportunity to ask
why
she wore full purdah, but passed. “For the longest time I didn’t even allow myself sexual thoughts—any impulse just got shut off like a light-switch. If a woman enjoyed sex, or expressed her sexuality outwardly she was automatically a slut with no respect for herself. Sex was a favor you allowed your husband so angels wouldn’t curse you until morning.”

“Wow,” I replied. “I had heard that hadith before, but I never imagined what it was like to be a woman and read that.”

“Yeah, it sucks. You know, a few years ago I was talking to a Muslim brother about marriage; shit, I must have been sixteen, can you believe that? Sixteen with no idea who I was or what I wanted from the world, and Mom was sending me potential husbands. But we talked about sex, and it was totally like a job interview—I think he just wanted to know that I was a virgin. He asked me if I masturbated, and I said no which was true because such things honestly didn’t even occur to me. Then he asked if I believed it was okay to, and I said yeah, I didn’t see anything wrong with it. He answered that with some fucked up hadiths about how on the Day of Judgment I’d be resurrected with pregnant hands.”