Рон Рэш - The Best American Short Stories 2018

The last time he showed up unannounced, his welcome was a long, dramatic sigh. “I called, azizam, ” he said, deflecting the lecture he knew was brewing in her head. He didn’t set down his overnight bag or sitar case for fear of her anger, but in the end, she invited him in. “I called many times,” he said and moved past her. “You don’t check your messages. I got tired of waiting.” That was months ago.

Today he had rung her doorbell again and again, shifted his bag and case to his left shoulder, and glanced up at her girlish, sea-green curtains, before turning north to catch a bus to Wilmington. His cheeks flushed—he had believed she would invite him to stay for a night or two. He had believed with such force. Never mind, he thought; that afternoon he would move into the Wilmington YMCA, his fourteenth in six years, but better not to make a spectacle of it. Since the death of her mother when she was six, Yasmine suffered from a kind of hysteria triggered only by his various superficial prospects.

He shook his phone for a new song, losing himself in one by Thom Yorke—oh, how he loved Western music. How glorious, whatever the style. Secretly, he liked it far more than the Iranian sitar classics he had played to spellbound crowds in Tehran. Maybe later he would post this song and collect the likes, lucky amulets to carry on the road. This meager attention helped him fend off the suffering over Yasmine and Iran, his vanished self, his music. His father, the elder ustad Sokouti, had been a world-renowned master of seven string instruments, and Rahad a celebrated sitarist and music teacher—but no ustad, no master. Still, he had a voice. But by the time the blood reached his daughter, it seemed all artistry had been strained out. Who, then, would remember those heady Tehran nights?

On the bus, he posted and waited. The song was bad bait—only four likes. He felt ashamed for the display: a serious Iranian musician, in his fifties no less, posting the songs of American teenagers who have no musical education. No, no, Yorke was good, and not even an American.

Now Yasmine appeared at the top of his feed. Ah. She was spending the weekend in Connecticut. He was tempted to like it, but refrained. She blocked so willy-nilly lately, and since he reopened his account, she had liked nothing of his. Where was the dignity of fatherhood? Yesterday, fifteen people had liked his post; but from her, nothing.

In Wilmington, the April air was crackling and fresh—none of the wet, cold residue of winter that covered New York—and the walk from the bus station revived him. Before long he saw it, the brown brick, the blue sign: YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION. He was neither a young man nor a Christian, though he was willing to pretend—in fact, he enjoyed it; there was great peace in disappearing. In Iran he had pretended to be a Muslim while spending every night in underground clubs. Once, in an Afghan village he had pretended to be his own father—all this in service of hunting the next great fog of music in which to disappear, a rhythm to shape that month or that year.

The facade of the YMCA building was graying in parts, blotched like the face of a pretty woman who has spent the day crying; he could see that it had recently been presentable. He entered and signed in, paid his twenty-five dollars, and accepted his key, nodding thanks to the receptionist, a young black woman with a tight, old-fashioned bun at the nape of her neck. Looking him up and down with almond eyes (almost Persian, like his), she licked her gleaming teeth in momentary confusion. What was he doing there, in his long black trench coat that might have cost something in better days, his elegantly battered leather shoulder bag and sitar case? He wanted to say to her, Surely, young lady, respectable people pass over rough soil now and then? But if he said this, he would likely botch the English, draining the words of their poetry. Besides, she must already know it; she offered rooms for twenty-five dollars a night.

“No needles, weed, or weapons in your room,” she said, her voice flat. “There’s a shared kitchen and bathroom, but you need your own dishes and soap.”

He walked through the dark corridor, past the communal bathroom and kitchenette, to his first-floor room. Before turning the key, he said a word in prayer (these days he said his prayers to Bob Marley, though the recipient changed often). Each new YMCA rekindled his dread of what that first swing of the door would reveal: in some states, he was met with a room as nice as a countryside motel, with a clean white duvet and a quaint photo on the wall; in others a hovel, hospital sheets and burned patches on factory carpets. Inside, he removed the trench, folded it twice, and placed it carefully on the twin bed. Eyeing the shadows on the crimson bedspread, he thought better of it, and placed the coat on the chair instead. He pulled back the bedding, lifted the mattress, and checked every seam and corner for insects. From his leather satchel, he removed a wrinkled garbage bag and a box of baking soda and peeled back the duct tape on the box’s mouth. He placed his folded coat in the bag, sprinkled it with baking soda, and tied the end in a knot. He shook the package a little and left it on a shelf, the only available surface besides the chair and the bed. Then, he began the work of examining his sitar, polishing it, tuning it. He mourned his lack of funds, as the sitar needed new strings. When he was finished, he put away the instrument and turned his chair toward the window. The curtains were thick, a fading floral pattern, and smelled of long-extinguished cigarettes. He didn’t want to touch them. Instead, he watched the cars disappear from the parking lot outside—the teenagers going home after basketball, mothers leaving a yoga class.

He craved a coffee but thought it better to wait until dinnertime, when he could have his coffee with a meal and perhaps find a cluster of computers nearby so he could check what the Internet was saying about him today. He regretted breaking his laptop. But things break; this is a reality of life. He didn’t want to waste his days puttering around online as Yasmine did, no matter what her job title. And yet, he had to admit, as he watched the basketball players and yogis rush home, their hours bound by routine but also simplified by it, that he did waste a precious lot of hours just surviving. Looking for a new neighborhood, beginning from zero for the fifth time in a year, coordinating his meals around Internet locations, finding Laundromats, hunting teaching gigs and motels outside of town, visiting friends and hoping they would invite him to stay for the night. This, every day for weeks, including winters. Then, always, back to the YMCA.

As a matter of habit, he spent most of his daytime hours at the public library looking up music, always remembering to check the three big websites dedicated to his own career that the Internet had created in the past few years. He admired the artful arrangement of his photos and videos; his biography in both languages; the muffled, sorrowful tune (his own composition) that played when he clicked on the first page. Finding the sites had been a welcome surprise. For so long, when the Internet thought of “ ustad Sokouti,” they thought of his father, who already had dozens of websites to himself. They must be witnessing a resurgence of interest in more modern renditions of classic songs, Rahad thought when he first came upon the sites. He considered showing them to Yasmine, since they might give her a feeling of security. He longed to be an asset to her, like American parents. Not a burden. But he never spoke of it; such topics always turned into fights.

To Yasmine, it seemed that Rahad had stopped journeying along with the rest of society somewhere around 1998. He had given up, sat in the road, and fiddled with his sitar until the others were far out of sight. Progress was not his talent—he liked the 1960s, even the ’70s, but beyond that, he had to be dragged. He had no health insurance, no acumen for anything technical, and was apparently an Internet bumbler. He had an outdated, off-line smartphone for his music, an old flip phone that held fifteen text messages at a time, no voicemail, and an email address Yasmine had set up that he checked every few days. Even so, he succumbed to some kind of scam almost monthly, each time thinking that the Web must have its rules and standards. “I wish you’d be more savvy online, Baba joon. It’s full of con artists looking for someone just like you,” she’d say. “I want you to be safe.” He didn’t know what safety had to do with it. Still, he made promises. “I promise you, Yasi joon, ” he wrote in an email, “I will acquire Internet skills and general American savvy.”