Рон Рэш - The Best American Short Stories 2018

Yasmine laughed. “Baba joon, stop that silly bazi, ” she said, her code since childhood that he should continue. “The Internet isn’t a person.” He imagined her head thrown back, scratching the spot on her chin where she had a careless habit of resting her pencil tip. Ever since grade school, she wondered aloud where the spot came from, and to this day she thought it was a mole. He loved dreamy, distracted Yasmine; not the eyeliner tech jockey, but a girl who was human and original and full of absurdities.

“If Internet is not person,” he said in English, “then why you work for him?”

She giggled. He recalled that on the day the Internet had put up his websites, the ones honoring his career, he went to a café, ordered an espresso, and read every page, nostalgia quickening and stinging his heart. Did Yasmine remember those glorious days? Apparently the Internet did. He marveled at this vital force in the world, one that hadn’t existed when his dying father had lamented his legacy, pleading, Who will play my songs? Here, two decades later, was an answer from the cosmos, an unseen deity that recognizes you, remembers you, commemorates you when your daughter won’t.

“Do you notice ever how much time is spent just in logistical doing?” Wyatt asked. They were in the Laundromat down the street from the Y, and he was carefully folding his Statue of Liberty T-shirt, which, by Rahad’s count, was one of twelve America-themed shirts he owned, every last one permanently soaked in imitation Acqua di Giò. In Rahad’s two weeks at this YMCA, Wyatt had visited every day. They had held four kitchenette jam sessions, with steadily growing attendance. Last time they even had a singer, a graying Vietnamese woman with a reedy voice like a parakeet. Often, Rahad had heard her crying in her room, her voice unmistakable. But that day, she had wandered into the kitchenette at the first sounds of music and sat on a stool, unmoving. With faraway eyes she watched Rahad play a classic Viguen tune, then she simply started to sing in her own tongue, stumbling now and then to follow the music, creating something broken and lovely. The heroin addict scavenging for food in the cupboards stopped muttering and turned to listen. Wyatt grinned with sad pleasure and quieted the rhythm of his bucket to make room for her small voice.

“I notice that, yes,” said Rahad, as he packed the last of his own shirts into a mesh bag. “You try to live simple and free but you still need place to do washing, place to cook food, to rinse a dish. Is all automatic in old life, but now just being awake takes up all the time.” Each morning Rahad locked his door and carried all his toiletries and towel back and forth to the shared bathroom. He undressed in his room, put on his clean clothes, and hung them up on a hook near his shower stall, hoping they wouldn’t be stolen. He carried his bowl and spoon to the kitchen for every meal, washed them immediately after eating, and carried them back. No food was safe there, and he had no fridge, so he ate in diners often and shopped daily based on that morning’s cravings. If he still had a car, he would keep his cash and papers in the trunk along with a cooler of water—a relief in summer, but mostly an excuse to fetch cash from the car without drawing attention. It seemed that something vital, a certain dignity perhaps, was lost in all this carrying of things.

“For damn sure, my friend,” said Wyatt, nodding and shaking his head at the same time. “That is a true. A big, big true. You empty out, and life refills itself with shit.”

“Then suddenly you’re in your car with all your clothes like an avareh, ” Rahad joked. Wyatt laughed at this Farsi word they now shared. Vagrant. Itinerant. Drifter.

“And sons don’t see this,” said Wyatt, suddenly sad. Wyatt, Rahad now knew, had a grown son in Houston, an engineer and family man. “They see only what you don’t do. They say you do nothing. They don’t see the thousand CV papers you sent to this director and that director, the ten thousand doors you knocked on. You think, ‘I must get these things quick.’ Only you can’t control the getting.”

“Your English is improving, sahib,” said Rahad, hoping to cheer up his friend.

After a moment Wyatt returned to his usual happy tone, his singsong affectation, which by now Rahad was convinced had a purpose, even if it was buried too deep even for Wyatt to know. Was he a DC native as he claimed, or a new immigrant as he seemed? He never spoke of India, avoiding the topic and insisting that he was American born. Yet the posturing was comically pronounced. Rahad didn’t ask what demon made the man muddle his past. When asked about such things, he had long known, most people lie, and even if they aim for honesty, they only ever hit near the mark. “World is no respect,” said Wyatt, “until nosy neighbor sees you have own oven. Now you can make sandwich, now you’re OK. Now only—not before—they come to say, ‘If ever something is needful, you must ask.’ Funny backward business.” He chuckled and flung his laundry bag over his shoulder.

For three weeks, Rahad watched the Vietnamese woman drag herself in and out of the kitchenette, her loneliness like iron boots. Late in the second week, after a night of sharing music, she had left a pot of spiced soup outside his door. He found out from Wyatt that she had lived there for years, received food stamps, and always found someone to whom she might offer her soup. She spent her days reading her own diaries in the local mall and carefully sorting through mail from Publishers Clearing House. Her downturned eyes and drooping eyelids, like wilted petals, made Rahad want to have a drink with someone new, to talk.

In the local library’s computer cluster, he joined a dating website for older singles. He uploaded a photo of himself from three years before, holding his sitar, not quite smiling, but not looking grim either. All in all, he thought the photo captured his personality and mood. In his description he wrote:

Iranian music man, 54, seeking liberal musical woman with educated children. I can cook Iranian food. I can play all music. I will be kind. I have a little money.

That should capture it, and it seemed savvy, too; Yasmine had warned him that the Internet was full of people looking for free money. He read the profile to Wyatt, who gave several hearty nods before becoming distracted by an email from his son.

The first woman who caught Rahad’s eye was a pretty, fifty-something widow named Susan. She had bright blue eyes, a gray bob, and one front tooth that overlapped the other as if in fifty years she hadn’t thought to fix it, a quality that reminded him of his late wife. But before he could write to her, he had his first message. At the chime of the messenger, Wyatt rolled his chair toward Rahad and began reading over his shoulder.

“Aha, a beauteous one,” he said. “Do one thing, scoot your chair. Read, read.”

Rahad shifted over. The message was from a thirty-year-old woman with fire-red hair, posing in a small orange skirt beside an enormous pool. It said:

Hello sweetie. How is your day going and wats going on with you? Your profile much attracted me and I believe we can work something out between each other. I’m Elizabeth, 30 years old, from Carolina, much looking for man of my life. You have such a beautiful spirit, and you are so handsome. Tell me about yourself. What do you do? Write me at sexyliz@yahoo.com

“Oh my goodness,” said Wyatt, “I am pissing myself. You caught such a good catch so quick into it! Say to her she looks like angel of light fallen from firmament.”

“She is same age like Yasmine,” said Rahad, trying to hide his shock for Wyatt’s sake. “Why she ask what I do? I already say music man.”