Рон Рэш - The Best American Short Stories 2018

“Who gives the fucks?” said Wyatt, who seemed on the verge of ripping out his own beard. “Maybe she’s being busy fighting men off with stick! Write her.”

Rahad kicked away Wyatt’s chair and replied:

Hello young lady. Why you are writing the old men? I am from Iran with daughter your age. You are very kind. Good luck finding man of life.—Rahad

“Oh, you fool!” Wyatt slapped both hands on his face and leaned back in his chair. “You big, big Iranian fool. I cannot be enduring this not one small bit. I cannot.”

Two minutes later, Elizabeth wrote again:

Rahad, what a nice name. I can see you are very soulful. I’m so much glad you wrote back. In your answer I can see you could be the kind of person I can spend my life with. Age is nothing. Love is all that matters. I am Liz, and I’m 30 from Carolina, but I have degree from Harvard. I need older man to keep me intellectually satisfied. You seem like a good man. What do you do? Please write me at sexyliz@yahoo.com

“Oh holy gods, she is not giving up, this one,” said Wyatt. “Write to her that she is a flower. Say, ‘World has no first-class creation better than beautiful woman.’”

Rahad batted away his friend’s hand, which was dancing between Rahad’s nose and the computer screen. He had to admit, he felt encouraged by the attention. As a young man in Iran, he had enjoyed the attention of many women. He had fans. Now, he took a moment to reread Elizabeth’s words before he replied: “I am musician from Iran.” Succumbing to a tinge of vanity, he added:

I was famous there in old days. Is very impressive that you go to Harvard. What you study? My daughter is your age and she goes there for university! She is Eliot House and computer science. You are same year maybe? You know her? What house? She is Yasmine Sokouti.

“Excellent response,” said Wyatt with a smack of his lips. “You wised up very much. First-class message.”

Moments later, his computer pinged: “Rahad, I see online that you have nice history in Iranian music.” Here Wyatt interrupted. “What she is meaning?” he said, his bunched fingers in Rahad’s face as if he were offering him a plum. “Do one thing, be googling yourself for me right now, right this second.” Rahad waved away the request and continued reading:

I won’t lie, I thought you were some scammer. But I didn’t have enough trust. You must have trust too. Asking me about what year and what I studied and if I know your daughter shows no trust. I so much wish you would believe when I say so about Harvard. Now I am not sure if I wish to read back from you, unless you are serious about finding a Trusting, Loving, Cherishing, Mutual relationship based on TRUST.

“Ohhh. Crazy, crazy bitch,” whispered Wyatt. “Was too good from beginning.”

Rahad laughed. “We are too much the dreamers, Wyatt joon. ”

“Maybe she’s not fully, totally crazy in real life,” muttered Wyatt, leaning on his hand as he continued staring at Elizabeth’s photo.

Rahad shook his head. “When Yasmine says word trust a hundred times in one talk, is because she lies by skin of teeth. And no mention that real Harvard people wear details on forehead like war paint.” He typed Elizabeth’s email address into a search engine that Yasmine had shown him. “Shame,” he muttered. “Is on list of scam.”

He logged out of the computer and gathered his things while Wyatt cursed their luck. “What cluster of fucks. Bitches always have surprise in sleeves, I tell you.”

“What if tonight we cook our own food?” said Rahad, suddenly eager to eat a Persian meal again. “Maybe we cook a nice kabob or a stew with rice.”

“Oh yes,” said Wyatt. “They have best Punjabi food in DC. We make with DC method, uses more turmeric than cumin, much nicer.”

When Rahad finished packing his bag, he saw that Wyatt had googled his name and was shaking his head at the photos on one of the three big websites dedicated to Rahad’s work. Wyatt clicked on a snapshot of Rahad with his head hung, cradling his favorite sitar, the instrument mostly obscured by his longish black hair. Rahad remembered that night and that photo. Yasmine had taken it from atop the shoulders of a distant uncle during Rahad’s final concert in Tehran, just before they left the country. “I cannot read these Farsi writings, bro, but you are being modest before. Very modest.”

“Internet does what it wants with informations,” said Rahad, trying not to smile.

They strolled to a local discount market. In the produce aisle, Wyatt rushed ahead to find this and that, while Rahad checked items off a list. “Look at sea of onions people throw to floor,” Wyatt groaned, craning his neck to see under the vegetable racks.

Rahad asked, “Do you think perhaps I am more Internet savvy after today?”

“Back in slum this is big, big crime!” said Wyatt to the onions. He added quickly, “Back in slum of DC.” Rahad just stared at his list. “Oh yes, yes,” Wyatt finally replied. “For sure. We thwarted lady romance scammer right in her tracks. Or maybe we have turned down super-delicious young redhead with Harvard degree. Either way, we most definitely did not do something not savvy. So, well done, sir.”

The next morning, Wyatt brought him naan from his sink again, and Rahad offered him a story—an even trade in both their cultures. He told his neighbor about his broken computer, the sleepless nights he had spent on Yas’s couch. He told Wyatt about the Thanksgivings Yasmine had spent as a guest of her friends or classmates, and about the famous ustad Sokouti and his palatial home wrapped around a Moroccan-style courtyard. He described the wash pool shaded by persimmon and plum trees, the vines that trimmed the high walls, the array of shapely string instruments lined up against the brick, tall or dainty or rotund, like bandmates waiting to play, and the pretty maid washing spoons and bowls and kitchen towels among the goldfish. In summer days, his baba joon walked around the garden in loose pants and a large straw hat, picking sour plums from the trees, sucking them through his gray moustache and shaking his head with pleasure. He was a large man with a full face and a wrestler’s gait, but gentle, always humming, and his house was full of delicious smells and sitar music. Lost now, all that.

Wyatt murmured, “American children always are wanting more.”

Later in the week, Wyatt waved two bus passes like they were winning lottery tickets and announced that they were going to New York. Rahad accepted, and when Wyatt told him to bring his sitar, he shrugged—his sitar was always with him. Maybe Yasmine had time for a coffee. He left her a message at work. At the bus stop, he sat quietly, hands on knees. Wyatt chatted on, almost to himself. “In DC, you know, they are putting fake bus bench outside old folks’ home. Very realistic. You know why? So Alzheimer folks don’t get on real bus thinking they are going to who knows where. Is that not brilliant? Sometimes I am sitting here, and I am thinking, Maybe I finally made it to Alzheimer bus bench. Maybe I am ninety, imagining myself sitting here with you, new friend, Irani music man, but really I am sitting next to a toy sign made of flimsy paper.”

In Times Square, though the stench of piss and car exhaust and roadside hot dogs sickened Rahad, he followed dutifully behind his friend, clutching his sitar a little closer each time someone bumped into him. They stopped at a loud corner near a subway stop and Wyatt turned. “You will be playing here.”

Rahad laughed. Then he saw that his friend was serious.

“Who knows who will be walking by and hearing you,” said Wyatt, eyes alight. “Internet is nothing: this is the absolute very center of New York! You play. You get discovered. Done and dusted.”