hyphenated american
TRANSCRIPT
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Copyrights 2009.
All Rights Reserved.
All characters in this novel are
fictional, any resemblance to
reality is purely
accidental..blah..blah blah..
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Chapter One
Her aparttment had Tiffany-style
Lamps hanging from ceilings, and
posters of Graffiti and what
seemed to be absurd pictures of
robots, things entirely inhuman-a
dcor that seems nothing but
insipid to me now. But back then,
however, it seemed the epitome of
all worldliness. I wanted to bask in
it, and in the unusual complicity ofour meeting, a little longer.
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But I felt bold enough to try my
own observations: I wouldnt
Hang these pictures of anthropoid
metal-it might scare some people.
And then for the dumbest reasonin the world I added: You should
only get married if youre in
love.
Anita looked at me dourly, as if
trying to determine if I was being
smart. In fact she called me smart
from time to time, in her quiet
style of undermining things. But I
must have looked innocent
enough. She said without emotion:
Well, sometimes girls have to getmarried. You know that.
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Oh, yeah, I said. She was right. I
knew about that. How many times
had I myself escaped being caught
by this one and that. Theconversation was beginning to get
interesting. I persisted. Who tells
the boy he has to get married? Is
there a law or something. I think
unconsciously I had wished for
such law, just so as not to be s
forlorn much longer.
You really are a twit, you know?
I am not.
But everyone knew someone
would marry Anita. She had-3-
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Once been a lawyer, and now wascalled a communication expert.
Whatever that meant. I never was
bold enough to ask. She knew an
attractive prospect-she had her
eyes on some wall-street or Ittype, she really measured them by
the size of the Manhattan flat their
income could provide. And of
course Persians were out of
question, we were beastly, brazen,
conceited, arrogant. Though she
took care not to use those
descriptions, I was certain her
promise to her folks had been like
the banner on her twitter site:
Hyphenated American, whereclearly if she were to have been
hyphenated anywhere, it would
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been hyphenated Iranian.
I had digested her banner/bio on
twitter with certain silence. I had
been really looking for an old
high-school girlfriend named alsoAnita, and had clicked on every
Anita name without prejudice.
Yes itd seemed possible that my
old girlfriend from high-school
had gone off to law school
somewhere. The world as I saw it
was always full of unpleasant
things.
We became friends over twitter. It
wasnt quite that impossible. I
lived in Paris at the time, and she-5-
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sang the praises of where she lived
somewhere in Tribeca, a place I
had never been to myself.
I had flown to New York city from
Paris-shed picked me up-we hadbought a few cheap things which
looked even cheaper and less
gratifying once they were removed
from the stores. It was near the
sunset when we headed back to
her apartment. I think we felt at
the time a little shy about having
enjoyed each others company so
much, especially me who
pretended to have no kinship, and
seeing everything as representingsome tribal barrier.
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When we reached at her building,
something tall and ominous. I
noticed men squatting on a
doorstep not a hundred yards onthe other side of street. They
werent black ; they werent even
old or unclean. But remember: Id
lived the life of being sheltered. I
was a city boy only in a technical
sense. I wasnt inured to street
games, and had no stock of tough
words to save our pride.
I looked at Anita to mirror her
street wise response. But she was
going to ignore them, the only-7-
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tactic that came naturally to herwhen she was confronted with
those on the margins of life,
unseemliness, directness, etc. and
that meant that she was going to
ignore me too. I set my face likehers and matched her step. There
was nothing else for me to do.
We climbed the wooden stairs and
didnt speak on the way. She had
her own apartment and didnt
share it with anyone. Shed
already informed me of this little
bit in the taxi, and in a hushed
reassuring tone. The unwell-lit
apartment was organized in an
obviously tangible way. Therewere large wooden solid desks
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old-fashioned things, but theirsurfaces were crammed with tiny
little drawings and water color
works that were all compulsively
tiny, and huddled against one
another-like their swarm was tokeep each others company for the
sole purpose of creating meaning,
meaning. The wooden floor was
polished and bare. A hyphenated
Persian rug was conspicuously
absent. There was a computer set
up just exactly where you
expected it by the TV set looking
more important. There really
wasnt a couch in the living room
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And I thanked God for that
because I didnt wanna have to
sleep in one. She showed me the
bedroom which has this unusually
large beige bed, something toohigh off the floor and looked
attended to like a shrine. I decided
thats probably where I sleep in as
well. It looked outrageously
comfortable. Girls were always
taking good care of their beds, I
think it had more to do with
homing instincts than anything
else. And it really wasnt that I
wanted to sleep with her for sex,
in fact the opposite had been-10-
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On my mind all the way fromParis. It wasnt that she was
unattractive or undesirable-just the
opposite in fact. She had a
brooding small face like a Persian
miniature, with her features allstanding up still and delicate like a
porcelain doll. And they way she
brushed her dark easy hair off her
face with just one quick tilt of her
head was almost endearing too in
a tribal way. My tribe. But the
blooming apartment looked like an
art class in some old air-locked
high-school building.. Even
though the summer night bloomed
around us outside the shutwindows like some enormous
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Blue-black rose. Even over thedust of the apartment I could smell
its fragrance. Everywhere invisible
in the world locusts must have
shrilled and swelled. But the
apartment looked like all it neededwas a swarm of cats. I believed
she be a cat lady in a year or two.
From the four story above al the
New York seemed to be not sleep,
but sunk in a dream of summer.
I practically tied my tongue in
knots trying to be enthusiastic and
complementary as if one big slab
of bed was that different from any
other. I think things were going
swimmingly that I wouldnt have12-
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Been surprised if she were goingto prepare us some dinner. It
would have been a great scene .
We would have had a chance to
show how polite we could be to
another, and how pleasant , and todemonstrate that people of
different backgrounds can learn to
transcend stereotypes and
communicate, and all that warm-
hearted human affirmative-jazz.
But what she really did was order
Chinese from the corner place.
The order arrived in nearly
minutes and we almost ate
standing up. I had known a lot of
her psych features fromcommunicating
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On twitter. Id known she could be
cold to a lot of different emotions.
But I suppose Id imagined that
all she needed was for someone to
poke under the hood like a dentistchecking someones mouth and
things would whiten or re-arrange
themselves and we be on our own
romantic way. It still hadnt
occurred to me that some human
engines might not get fixed at all.
She let me sleep by her side in the
massive bed that night. In the
morning I woke up before her and
walked into the living room to see
if things had changed at allovernight.
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But no, everything was quite as
impersonal and indirect as last
night. My neck was stiff from all
night trying to stay away from her
side of the bed. And I must havesmelled like the crushed flowers
shed spread all over the covers.
But I put on my straightest, most
noncommittal clothes (clean jeans
and a striped cotton shirt), and I
thought I looked unremarkable, if
not exactly unobtrusive.
I wanted to go snooping through
her things. On twitter her character
Had always been built on some
bedrock of exaggeration, andmystery,
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She either only sang her own
praises indirectly, tirelessly, or
would withdraw from
communicating for weeks in the
false pretence that her tenderfeelings had been trounced. She
made these dramatic departures
from scenes regularly. In trips
most shrinks would have called
hysterical. I really had made the
trip not to enamor her, but to
unravel her falseness to the core.
But this was probably an
unnecessarily mean thought. But it
had occupied the recesses of my
mind. Anita always seemed torequire this sort of shifting of
equilibrium from me, guilt
replaced by scorn
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With fondness leaking through
seams.
Her sketchbooks were packed withwater colors of people one must
have heard of somehow, but
couldnt have had for they
apparently had to have obscurity
in common to be sketched. They
appeared to have some unhappy
communion of ailments. Ones
breasts hung low like a leaked
balloon. Another titled: George
Kloonny resembled him if he had
to have suddenly aged 20 years.On and on. Were these somehow
her fellow sufferers and how were
to recognize each other from
another.
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Anita was beginning to stir. I
could her the massive bed making,
sounding bells. Instead I started tolook out the fourth floor buildings
window. Something innocuous.
There was a cigarette and
magazine stand down in the corner
of the street-even a fruit and
vegetable stand, frightened with
pumpkins and bushels of apple. I
began to feel mildly hopeful. Live
in the moment! Visualize joy.
New York from a distance looked
like a place where age andimperfections are cherished
tributes. Where beauty shines best
when its slightly faded.
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Its timeworn elegance felt more
like Paris or New Orleans, and not
at all like Los Angeles, the city I
preferred to all these others.I barely heard her bare footsteps
behind me, lingering by the door
to kitchen to really observe me. I
doubt that she entirely trusted me
now. What with sleeping with her
and not having even touched her,
with nothing having been tactile
and still apparently waking up in a
good mood she clearly found my
behavior odd then.
How about some coffee? Shesounded flat, self-possessed and
indifferent as a cat.
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Oh, youre going to fix some?
Somehow I slyly wanted to give
the impression that she were about
to order some from outside. I
hadnt yet forgiven her forcramming my stomach with
noodles the night before. But I
moved to the kitchen door to
watch her from behind. Shed
never revealed her age, but I
guessed she was in her early
thirties. And I thought if one looks
harder, one can see more lovers
than were strictly necessary
trailing behind her like a
parachute. The girl hadnt simplylived by her wits alone.
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The sight of her bare delicate feet
on the cold floor stirred in me the
way warm coffee in the morning
stirs the senses. I suddenly had a
longing for her: physical, lustful,indeterminable. The way she
moved quickly around her kitchen
would turn any man
domesticated. Nobody said
anything for a while. It was the
exact thing Id been afraid of. Her
physical sense, her steam, her
fragrance, her odors.
I wished with all my heart that a
branch or something would fall
and knock me out. I wouldnt like-21-
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being vulnerable with her. Instead
I heard myself saying: Do you
always look so sensual in the
morning? The words had escaped
my lips. It was what Id beenafraid of saying all along. She was
by the stove and didnt utter a
word. Didnt even turn her head.
Like shed always expected
them.But I know her body leaned
toward mine in the way a body
doesnt listen to a word. But
catches the scent of solace in the
air and follows. And I grabbed her
from behind, and she let me have
her lips. Which were moist andsoft as her other features and we
kissed the longest kiss.
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And then we kissed with little dips
and hesitations. Light hit her eyes
and they looked nearly liquid.And then I was already inside her
by sheer unstoppable propulsion.
Then she said: Eh. About 50
seconds late. When I lifted her up
and took her back to the massive
bed.
She cried when she came and it
made the pollens fly to its golden
cup. Something more stirred
inside her then, something
torrential, something tenuous inher arterial waters.
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And for some reason I felt I had
run through the fire and come
upon a wellspting. We had
separated now, our bodies had,and I felt the tang of this. Its
bitterness. And began to make an
atlas of her body with my
fingertips. Of her dew streaked
breasts, classic diamond mouth.
I think I know understand the
lines you draw.
It seemed as if we ought to be
having a conversation: it was part
of camaraderie of sex.
I thought you didnt like mydrawings?
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I loved them-I am here, amnt I?
You are here because you loved
my drawings?
Do you know in just one of yourblogs you use the words: erudite,
vexing and transfiguration in just
one sentence?
Did I?
And why that wouldnt that stop
you from coming over? From
making love to me like
possession?
What you think I havent thought
this through? Ive studied you
from every angle-there may not bea happy-ever-after option for both
of us.
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Im doing what I need to be doing
to write. So quit asking me. You
dont to have know everything.
Anyways it may just be a summerthing and not a way of life..
She quit asking, and the sweat
dried out on our skins. And later
on we made love again like one of
us was going to war next day.
I was beginning to fall in love and
hoped she knew nothing about it.
First she was kind of cranky. Two
she didnt know how to cook, the
second night wed lived on pizza
with bits of box stuck to the crust.-26-
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Three she went on putting blogs
that made no human sense at all.
They all read like the dialogues
inebriated people have in
expensive bars. Full of semi-professional conceit and things
generally no one cares about. And
us bloody Persians are supposed to
be metaphorical, but you couldnt
read in between her lines if an old
wise Persian sat by.
By the time I woke up next day-
she was cranking at the keyboard
like speed or intelligence is
measured by how quickly you hit
the board, and never mindmomentum or the powers of
uprooting.
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But I had to think positive. I had
to believe there was something she
was good at that may be nobody
else was, I took a look at themonitor for a quick inventory:
science fair projects, music arts
reports, nope, nope, nope.
Academic achievement, back in
the day, better not go there. Big
financial success, still coming up
for craps. May be they talked
each other into going out after
work each night for threes same
reasons.. Happy hour theyd say: I
think I could get all the way up tohappy.
It was getting to me, and I felt, no
lie, pretty dismal.
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All over her apartment you would
find these matches with some
fancy bars name on the cover. Thematches almost always had some
poor souls numbers. I could just
imagine the places, they would
steer each other into, little tables,
low lights a piano playing lush
cocktail music. She probably left
the matches around to piss me off.
I picked one of the matches off the
crowded table, and said: nice
place. I said being totally
sarcastic, but of course she didntget it. Yeah, very uptown.
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Do you want me to fix some
coffee?
Its already fixed pour yourself acup.
What are you exactly doing?
I am planning our Sunday.
Didnt even blink an eye.
What are you exactly planning?
A visit to an exhibition about
robot-generated music!!
I can play guitar and piano!!
Thats not what this is about-its
about me-my interests!!
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Dont you prefer to go with oneof your boyfriends??
I thought you were my
boyfriend?
She looked daggers at me, like Id
complicated a simple arrangement.If I responded in any way. Id be
sleeping in some hotel
somewhere.
I am sorry about shooting off my
mouth, but robot music is just not
my idea of goodtime!!
Well, thats too bad because
youre coming with me.
What should I dress like?
Something inconspicuous.
I came up to her shoulder-31-
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I wished I was a little closer to eyelevel for what I was going to say.
You mean I should dress like I
dont exist, or have no gender.
You are simply being stupid
now.One thing, I said business-like.
If it doesnt work out we can go
to Central Park-or even stop by a
Persian restaurant and have
something substantial for dinner.
She smelled of starch and, very
faintly of perspiration.
I can cook Persian food quite
wellI was taught by my
mother.
Splendid.-32-
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By the way, when can I meet
your parents?
You are never going to meet
them. She said with a sneer and
got up from her chair.I am going in the shower-gotta be
ready in 45 minutes.
The sneering was the best front
she could put on. Hearing things
like that made me sick and afraid.
Just then the phone rang, it was a
friend of hers, it was a female
friend and they spoke in the most
convivial terms. That aroused a
suspicion in me. I was always real
keen to the way a woman dressed.-33-
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And Anita had greeted me at the
airport in a white shapeless shirt
and drooping black pants. I had
attributed this to the way
professional women dressed in amans world. I suppose I really
didnt want to think of her as
being bi-sexual or anything radical
like that.
I stopped listening to them, and
looked out the window not really
caring anymore what was there.
New York was looking at the
moment like one of those cities in
a monopoly game. I was
beginning to think I was nevergoing to get out of it.
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But small towns have a worsteffect on me, theres nothing in the
world quite as stupid-looking as
cattle.
She was in the bathroom, I could
hear the sound of water droppingon her head. And the apartment
which had managed to smell of
airlessness, now felt trapped with
perfumes and a dozen different
soaps.
Her eyes flicked sideways over me
when she walked out of the
shower. I think the usually sweet
after-taste of sex had left her, and
created a scary vacuum in there.
Something like she was about to-35-
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lose her identity in mine. And ofcourse every fiber of her body was
jumping to rise in some rebellion.
So what do you think I should
wear.
Why are you so set on pretendingyoure stupid? I dont think you
are, really.
Thanks. Why are you so set on
pretending youre smart?
She let that pass for now. I said, I
just think you havent met a lot of
men like me before, and you dont
want to admit it.
There didnt seem any pressing
reason for arguing with her. She
was being her indifferent person,indifferent and careless as a cat.
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If youve changed your mind
about things, I said, I mean,
about having me here and all.
Thats OK. Ill just get off here.You dont even have to take me
back to the airport, I mean Ill get
a hotel room, and hang in the city
for a while.
As soon as I spoke she swerved
herself over to her closet and
began to dress in the same
shapeless outfits.
Arent you going to wear a
dress?
I never wear them.?-37-
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Later on we were through the
other end of city. Listening to
robots playing music. I waited
while she spoke to nearly
everyone there. All alongmanaging to look sour. And her
friends pretended to be gracious to
me. Her female friends openly
flirtatious. I think I smiled
idiotically at everyone, the way I
smile at mirrors. I must have
peered into a million different
mirrors in my life with the same
stupid flirtatious smile. Some
things never change. I wondered
how I came to stand in front of-38-
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these people, rubbing my head in
my nervous fashion, I couldnt
think of a reason. Oh, I knew I
was there because of her and,
before that, because shed pickedme up at the airport, before that,
because wed made friends. But I
couldnt get much further. There
were a lot of small reasons that
branched off from one another, but
no grand design, no roots or heavy
trunks. I tried to remember why
Id wanted to leave home in the
first place, why I had wanted to go
out west. It had something to do
with Anita, the hyphenated--39-
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Persian girl, but I realized I hadnt
really thought much deeply about
her lately. She was just part of the
mess I carried inside my head. She
couldnt matter, not any longer. Iwondered if I would ever do
anything right.
Then I squeezed my eyes shut for
a moment, and when I opened
them, I had forgotten where I was.
(second draft-a novel)
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