Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings (6 page)

Once while we were talking, Jameson took out his wallet and started pulling out his business cards. He began sorting them in different piles, tearing up the ones he didn’t need, putting the others in neat stacks of five or six. It seemed like he was making a tiny city of soft, rectangular buildings, neatly cut with straight roads and off-white buildings that had no windows.

“We should go to Mumbai,” I said. “We should go see him. Surprise him.”

“We should definitely do that.”

“Do you have his address?”

“No. Someone will have it though.”

“Yeah, someone will.”

“He’ll probably call us soon anyway. Or he’ll just show up, just like that. I think he would probably do that, don’t you?”

“He’d probably do that.”

I picture the three of us wandering through Jameson’s city of cards, turning into the wrong streets, cutting ourselves on the corners, trying to keep in step with people we couldn’t see. I think of Senthil sleeping under a bench in a railway station, the King of Things, Karna of the Vampires vomiting on the side of the road, screaming at the buildings for growing in his way and blocking out the sun.

I had no hope for success
, I whisper to myself and watch as the pile of ripped business cards grows like a mountain of small mistakes.

Jobin was leaning against the wall, a bloodied handkerchief against his left eye. He did not seem despondent or in pain—in fact, he looked like he was waiting for the bus. I thought we should probably go to a doctor but Jobin said there was no point, since they had taken his eye with them.

I wondered what they would do with Jobin’s eye. Someone said they were artists so there was really no telling what they would do. They would probably wear it in a buttonhole like a chrysanthemum. If they had been animal rights activists they might have given it back.

“D’you know what my grandmother used to say?” said Jobin. “She would say sit in the sun, Jobin. Keep your back straight, think of God and your ancestors blessing you with thick black hair and good eyesight. Everything will be alright.”

I pictured Jobin as a small boy, hair neatly plastered to his head, his large, liquid eyes almost too big for his face.

“That’s nice,” I said.

“Not really. I kept getting sunstroke.”

“We could ask for it back you know,” I said. “I could take them a cake or a kitten or something. Maybe they’ve kept it on ice and we can get a doctor to sew it back in. Or maybe it’s still in there! Do you think maybe—”

Jobin shook his head and adjusted the handkerchief over his eye. I leaned against the wall and wondered what would be harder—getting his eye back or finding a place to sit in the sun.

He stood on the sidewalk pulling small, white cats out of his mouth, each one twisting in his hands like a scorpion caught by the tail. Most of them wandered off, one almost got hit by a car. Another curled up and went to sleep in a flowerpot. He pulled out five cats and then he leaned over and spat into the pavement.

“Hey,” I said, though I was sure he wouldn’t respond. I said hey to anything—buses, children with ice cream cones, blind people. No one ever said hey back. The man shook his hand like he didn’t want anything, didn’t have the time.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked.

“Doing what?”

“Pulling cats out of your mouth.”

“Why, are you allergic?”

“No.”

“Are they bothering you?”

“Not really.”

“Want to see something?”

Before I could answer, he began tweezing something out from between his front teeth.

“I think this is yours,” he said and held up a tiny goldfish. My fish had died about a week ago but I had left it in the bowl, just in case it wasn’t really dead.

“That’s not mine,” I said.

“Sure it is.”

“No, mine was black.”

The man looked at the fish and frowned.

“Are you going to do the cat thing again?” I asked.

“No.”

“Will you come and do it tomorrow?”

“Don’t think so.”

I watched as he crumpled the fish into his fist like a piece of paper. I had a feeling that if I had said it was mine, everything would have been different.

It was a completely useless Sunday afternoon. Two girls, A. Lakshmi and B. Lakshmi, were alternately yawning and sighing with boredom. The room was heavy with heat and ennui—even the chairs seemed oppressive. That’s when the beetle appeared on the windowsill. The girls eyed it with heavy eyes, slightly resentful that it had the energy to move on an afternoon that spoke of nothing but inertia. It teetered on the ledge and suddenly dropped to the floor with a soft tap. After struggling with the seemingly impossible task of flipping itself upright it began to toddle across the floor. It scuttled up to A. Lakshmi who promptly brought her foot down on it.

“Chee,” said B. Lakshmi.

The beetle’s abdomen had been crushed, its legs sliding uselessly as it tried to move. A. Lakshmi pursed her lips in disgust and lifted her foot again.

“Wait,” said B. Lakshmi.

“It’s messing up the floor.”

“Why did you step on it then?”

A. Lakshmi rolled her eyes and raised her foot again.

“Wait,” said B. Lakshmi.

“Why?”

“It’s still alive.”

“So?”

B. Lakshmi opened her mouth to say something but decided it was too hot for an afternoon scuffle.

“Whatever,” she said, sinking back into her chair.

A. Lakshmi rolled her eyes and gave the beetle a swift kick, sending it skidding into the wall. B. Lakshmi watched as the beetle tried to flip itself upright again. She wanted to help but the thought of getting up was too overwhelming. She should put it back in the garden, under a flower maybe. No, she would put it in a cool, shady place on a huge leaf. It would waggle its antennae back at her and say “Thank you for saving my life.” She soon fell asleep, dreaming she was a pink angel in an oppressively hot chair, on a mission to save the squashed bugs of the world.

•

A few hours later, the world was a cooler, kinder place. A. Lakshmi and B. Lakshmi were on the verandah, watching the late afternoon wane into a breathtaking sunset. A solemn, crooked line of ants carried away the remains of the beetle, weaving silently down the porch and into the garden. Neither of them noticed it.

There is nothing extraordinary about the East Coast Highway—just sand, the scent of decaying fish and the sound of her nylon sari swishing against her ankles. He feels all of this running through his veins like molten electricity, charging through his lips and hands. He closes his eyes and drinks from a dusty, green coconut while a snaking rivulet winds towards his elbow.

She watches him. She pictured this moment when the bus lurched suddenly to avoid a dog. She replayed it over and over again as shabby boys tried to sell her stale tapioca chips and ginger candy. She watches coconut water course down his arm and drip slowly into the sand.

“Was it sweet?” she asks and he nods. She has carried this coconut through two crowded buses—carried it with both hands as if it had a heartbeat.

“Why are you still holding it?” she asks. He feels the sea sparkle and burn into his eyes; the blue sky tightens around his lungs like a fist. He wipes his mouth and lets the empty shell roll from his fingers onto the burning ground.

•

At night the crows fold up like cardboard boxes while moths cling uselessly to the street lamps. He walks briskly, wishing he had marked the place with a stone. He wishes he had put it in his pocket, like a photograph. He runs his fingers through the sand, brushing away hot pieces of broken glass. He finds the empty shell and takes it home, carrying it with both hands as if it had a heartbeat.

Her mouth dissolves into a thin, cold line. I tap my finger on the table, watching as her eyes frost over like icy stones.

“
Just
the margins,” I say. “And I’ll only use pencil. Promise.”

Luckily her intense dislike for me comes with an equally strong need to be polite and accommodating. She slowly extracts her ruler from her box and places it on the neutral area of the bench we share. I already know the rules.

Do not call it a ruler—it is a scale.

Do not put it in your mouth.

Do not use it to scratch yourself.

Do not use it to cut pieces of mango pickle.

When you’re finished, give it back. Immediately.

I halfheartedly draw my first margin and turn to her.

“Did you know that your scale is called Dimple?”

I point to the name stamped boldly across the center of the ruler.

“It’s an odd name for a rul—I mean a scale. More like a name for…”

I can’t think of anything that could convincingly carry off the name Dimple. Out of the corner of my eye I notice that her fists are perched on the table like tiny anxious birds. We have shared this bench for the past six months and I have never touched her hands, not even by accident.

I flip my notebook around, ready to draw the final margin. I can feel her eyes boring into the side of my face—her knuckles have whitened from the strain of waiting. I sigh, place the ruler back on the neutral part of the bench and watch as it disappears behind her thin brown fingers.

I think of the coconut beetles that fly and fall into our house every night like wayward pebbles. I always corner them, hoping they will do something singular and memorable. But they just lie there, the glint of the tubelight ricocheting weakly off their backs.